


Seasons: Summer

by astudyinotters753



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Bottom Hank Anderson, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Making Love, Romance, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Top Connor, beginning of a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-06-23 06:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15599877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyinotters753/pseuds/astudyinotters753
Summary: A collection of short stories all centered around different seasons.  Each can be read as a stand-alone piece.The first thing Connor comes to learn about summer is that it is universally romanticized.  He’d done his research to prepare for the rising temperatures, or at least, he thinks to himself as he sprawls a little more loosely across Hank’s couch, he thought he’d done adequate research.  It had taken the better part of one of his lunch breaks to download the several thousand forms of media that had been recommended to him by Simon and Markus.  But, he thinks as he plucks at his sweat-slick shirt, dissatisfied with the way it sticks to his synthetic skin, there was no way his research could have prepared him for this.





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing Connor comes to learn about summer is that it is universally romanticized. He’d done his research to prepare for the rising temperatures, or at least, he thinks to himself as he sprawls a little more loosely across Hank’s couch, he thought he’d done adequate research. It had taken the better part of one of his lunch breaks to download the several thousand forms of media that had been recommended to him by Simon and Markus. But, he thinks as he plucks at his sweat-slick shirt, dissatisfied with the way it sticks to his synthetic skin, there was no way his research could have prepared him for _this_.

This, he thinks as he adjusts himself again, his legs spilling off the side of the couch to allow his bare feet to press against the slightly cooler hardwood, is not the great, happy time he thought it would be. It is not the bright, golden-tinted everlasting fun-fest that had been so prevalent in the movies he’d downloaded. In the wake of the revolution in Detroit, there were no carnivals or county fairs to go to. There were no pools to cool down in and swim around with Hank. There were no backyard barbeques being run by his colleagues at the precinct.

At first, as the mild temperatures of May had steadily risen into June’s dry heat, it was fine. He’d taken to spending both the early morning and the late evening lounging on Hank’s porch, usually with Hank next to him, a glass of iced tea or a cold beer in hand. They’d let Sumo out some times, and watch as he’d chase the fireflies around in lazy circles. But, just as he was adjusting to the sun-soaked warmth he thought was characteristic of summer, June had melted into the soggy inferno that was July, and Connor has been acutely aware of his rapidly diminishing sanity. So much so that he can pinpoint the exact moment where his ability to, as Hank would put it, “give a fuck” had evaporated into the unforgivable humidity that refuses to sit properly in his artificial lungs.

Before he can re-adjust his position a third time, the door to Hank’s bedroom pops open with a creak as the hinge complains. He lumbers into the living room and wastes no time plopping down in the small amount of empty space at the very edge of the couch, quickly pulling Connor’s feet onto his lap. His skin, while somewhat cooler than Connor’s, is still warmer than usual. Had the weather been cooler, Connor would have suspected Hank was sick with a fever. But, here in the sticky-slick haze of the hateful mid-morning sun, Connor watches as Hank’s eyes grow clear and sharp, even as the rest of his complexion grows ruddy and moist. To Connor, Hank looks every bit as miserable as they both feel.

“Air conditioner won’t be fixed for another week,” Hank offers, raising a hand to scratch at the overheated skin at the base of his neck.

Beside him, Connor hums, and the sound comes out in a staticky buzz. In the corner of his vision, he sees an error message flicker in and out, warning him of his steadily increasing core temperature. He knows that if he doesn’t find a way to cool down soon (or, at least slow the progress) that his secondary, non-vital systems will start shutting down. While he knows that the stopping of his artificial breathing and scanning capabilities will not worry Hank, the inability to keep his artificial skin projected would likely spook him.

Hank doesn’t seem to have anything else to say for a while, and the silence stretches out, uncomfortably thick in the obscene heat between them. Somewhere in the apartment, Connor thinks he hears Sumo whine - the sound equal parts morose and pitiful. The sound resonates so deeply within Connor’s biocomponents though, that he cannot be entirely sure it hadn’t come from his him.

Eventually, Hank sighs and hauls himself from the couch, drifting back down the hall into his bedroom. “Get up, Connor,” he barks, his voice catching thickly on the words. “Call Fowler and tell him we aren’t coming in at all this week.”

It takes Connor approximately thirty times longer to process Hank’s request than usual, his LED cycling quickly from a serene blue to a deep amber. When he finally catches up, a mechanical litany of “why” falls from his mouth.

It doesn’t stop until Hank bursts out of his room, speed walks into the library, and clamps a hand over Connor’s mouth. “Connor,” he growls. “Shut up already.”

“But Lieutenant-”

Hank glares at him, his jaw tense, and Connor feels the rest of his sentence get lost between his vocal processor and his mouth.

“Hank,” he tries again, his words muffled. He only continues when Hank’s expression softens. “Why aren’t we working this week?”

“Vacation,” Hank replies easily, removing his hand from Connor’s mouth. “You and me are gonna take a vacation.”

“Where?” Connor asks, the error from earlier glitching into his line of vision again. “Where where where where where-”

He’s promptly cut off again by Hank’s hand returning to clamp over his mouth. “Look, Con,” he starts, relaxing his grip when he feels Connor start to breath heavily underneath his hand. “I don’t know where we’re going yet, and right now, I don’t particularly care.”

Beneath his palm, Hank can feel Connor’s throat attempting to swallow around nothing, his audio processor buzzing hot against his skin.

“All I know, is that we’re leaving as soon as we can get the car packed. So pick some clothes, pick a destination, and get loading.”

Dumbly, Connor just nods, his movements jerky and stunted. Hank waits a beat, sucks a slow breath through his teeth, and watches as Connor turns and clambers down the hall. He can feel his joints catching as he tries to walk, turning his normally smooth gait into a knee-jerking parody that has him frustrated.

Eventually, with Hank doing most of the work, they get the car packed up. It stutters to life underneath Hank’s careful hands, and the blast of air that comes out of the vents makes Connor wonder if his face has officially melted off.

“It’ll cool down in a few minutes,” Hank says, fumbling to direct the vent’s flow of air away from both of their faces. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me where we’re going?”

Connor’s LED flashes a pale yellow at his temple as he prepares his answer. His systems are overheating, but he knows it’ll be done soon, so he pushes forward and continues with his searching. One moment stretches into two, Connor blinks rapidly, and then replies, “Richmond, Virginia.”

Hank pauses, his hand hovering above the gear shift of his car, and turns to stare at Connor. “Connor,” he murmurs, “what the fuck is in Richmond?”

Connor’s LED cycles quickly from yellow to scarlet, and his eyebrows knit together on his forehead. The number of error and warning messages he sees increase, and before he knows it, he can barely see straight through them. “My initial searches have turned up several different attractions that appeal to both of our interests,” he rattles. “If I expand the search radius to-”

“In English, Connor,” Hank interrupts, fixing Connor with a not-so-impressed stare. “Enough of that pre-programmed stuff.”

Beside him, Connor nods slowly, and lets his eyes flutter shut. One by one, he addresses the errors, and shuts down some non-vital secondary systems. When his LED flashes a cool yellow again, he tries again. “There’s some museums I’d like to visit,” he admits. “And a significant number of breweries that offer artisanal beer flights and tours. I figured that those might be something you’d like to do.”

“That’s an awful long way to go for some beer and museums,” he comments. “Why not just stay close to the city? Or even visit Chicago? They’ve got great museums, too.”

Connor stutters for a second, his initial attempt at a reply vibrating uselessly in his vocal processor. He frowns and slumps in his seat, his head leaning sideways against the heated glass of the window.

Hank seems to understand that another reason will make itself known as soon as Connor’s systems get themselves under control, and takes the minute before his car’s air conditioning system decides to start blowing cool air to generate directions. They sit in Hank’s driveway, doing nothing, while the car slowly cools. There is a brief moment, just after the car reaches a temperature that is slightly more bearable, where Connor’s whole body shudders, then goes lax against the seat. Concerned, Hank looks at him out of the corner of his eye and watches as his LED blinks back from red, to yellow, to blue.

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” Connor offers after a moment, turning away from Hank’s gaze.

Hank continues to sit there in silence, watching as Connor fidgets with the hem of the worn-out, faded t-shirt he’d stolen from Hank’s own closet several weeks back. He knows how hard it is for Connor, even after all this time, to express his wants and desires instead of allowing his programming to dictate his course of action. So, instead of speaking up, he bites his tongue and waits as Connor’s LED spirals just a little bit faster, as his fingers pinch at a patch of strings that have frayed from his shirt.

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” Connor tries again, “but I’d like to.

Beside him, Hank nods once, puts the car in reverse, and pulls out of the driveway.

 

* * *

 

When they arrive at Richmond, the world is cocooned in a blue haze. The sun hasn’t quite risen yet - it’s still too early - but the sky is far too light to still be considered night. They check into a small, economy-style motel on the city outskirts, the decision made in part by how exhausted Hank is, and the black-out curtains that were advertised in the listing. Connor lingers by the car as Hank checks them in, androids still can’t do so, and watches as the sky lightens little by little with each passing minute.

Their room isn’t anything special. A single, queen-sized bed sits in the center and a small sleeper couch is pushed unceremoniously in a corner. In terms of amenities, there’s a small fridge for perishables and an ever smaller coffee pot with bland, just-expired packets of coffee and tea. The bathroom is small and efficient with no luxury finishes, but the towels and the shower basin are clean. All in all, it’s perfect.

Hank wastes no time in flopping on the bed, still clothed, with one shoe hanging off his foot. His entire body is screaming at him from being cooped up in his car for so long. There was a time, many years ago, where he’d done these kinds of things with little to no repercussions. He can’t remember how many times he’d decided, usually with a group of friends, to just drop everything, load up a car, and _go_. His body was able to handle the long hours on the road then, but now, he’s in so much pain and so, _so_ tired that he cannot decide if he wants to fall asleep where he’s landed, or actually put forth the effort to change his clothes and go to bed properly. His answer, as usual, is made for him by Connor, who despite being programmed as a police android, has taken a liking to caring for Hank.

He is stripped, efficiently, from his over-worn, grimy clothes and pressed into the bathroom. Connor starts the shower for him, sorts out clean linens and a new change of clothes while Hank brushes his teeth and the water warms. When Hank’s mouth is clean and tastes like mint, Connor returns to him, naked and perfect and smooth, and climbs into the shower, turning with open arms to welcome Hank into the spray.

Connor helps wash him, his strong hands that were made for violence are so gentle as they glide over Hank’s body. He’s astounded with the way Connor moves, how reverent his touches feel when Hank knows he doesn’t deserve such softness. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, half under the spray, half out in the cold, while Connor works. Only that he’s there in the moment with him, and Connor looks nothing short of delighted to be in such close quarters with him.

When Connor is finished, the water is turned off and Hank finds himself quickly wrapped up in a towel. He barely manages to dry himself off before Connor is leading him back towards the bed, a small trail of water dripping behind them as they go. He isn’t allowed to dress himself, and finds himself at the mercy of Connor’s compassion as he’s helped first into a shirt, and then a pair of boxers.

There is a moment, where Connor lingers on the floor, that Hank finds himself wanting. Connor paints such a pretty picture, looking up at him while on his knees, a slight smile turning up the corners of his mouth. It would be so easy to reach down, to sink his fingers into Connor’s hair, to guide that sharp, smart mouth closer and closer until he was pressed against Hank. But, then he blinks, and the moment breaks. Connor rises to his feet, dresses himself efficiently, and gets Hank settled in the bed before sliding in beside him, wiggling back so that he’s nestled against Hank’s chest like a spoon, wrapping Hank’s free arm around him, resting with his hands posed in such a way that their fingers are almost entwined where they rest over Connor’s clavicle.

They’d only done this a few times before, never all that often, usually after the culmination of a particularly stressful or strenuous case. Every time he’s allowed this pleasure, it always results in the best, most restful sleep Hank ever has. He’s so tempted to want this every night for however long he can have it, but when he’s alone in the dark with his arms wrapped around Connor, he finds that there is no distancing himself from his flaws, from how incredibly different he is from Connor. He waits, just like every other night, for the reality of their situation to come crashing down around him. Waits for Connor to realize the mistake he’s made, waits for Connor to realize that Hank is already on his way out; simply waiting for his imminently impending supernova while Connor’s light flares, just born and burning blue-hot and blinding in the sky.

In his arms, Connor shifts slightly and Hank feels his hands grow clammy. This must be the moment he’s been dreading since he wrapped his arms around Connor standing in front of the Chicken Feed truck in the snow. The time where Connor knows that Hank is a man that is only made for short term fascinations.

“Hank,” Connor breathes, rolling over to look Hank in the eyes.

Hank holds his breath and allows his eyelids to droop, blocking out the look of pity Connor must be giving him.

“Thank you,” he says, reaching a hand up to brush his fingertips across Hank’s cheek. “I’m so glad that I’m with you.”

Hank doesn’t say anything, but feels the corners of his eyes burn and dampen. He wraps his arms around Connor a little tighter and cards his fingers through his hair. It’s only when Connor has officially entered stasis mode that Hank lets out a shaky breath. “Where else would I be?” he asks the darkness. “Where the fuck else could I ever be?”

 

* * *

 

They spend most of their first day of vacation lurking around the hotel. Connor wakes them both, not long after noon, and demands that they find some sort of food for Hank. They settle for the gas station just across the street, loading up on cheap sandwiches and, to appease Connor, several pieces of fruit, before returning to the hotel. Hank spends the rest of the day fighting off the sleepy delirium that haunts him, doing his best not to crawl right back in that bed and pass out for another twelve hours.

Eventually, Connor pushes him down into the couch and turns on the television that’s perched on top of the mini-fridge. Hank settles himself as far into one of the corners as he can, his hands wrapping around one of the pillows that has been thrown on for decoration. He’s expecting Connor to sit at the other end of the couch, ramrod straight, and ready to comment endlessly on whatever garbage daytime television program they settle on. He doesn’t expect Connor to take a lingering look at him, nod his head minutely, and sprawl himself against Hank’s side.

It dawns on Hank, somewhere between the second and third episode of Judge Judy reruns, that Connor is cuddling with him. It’s only after the fourth consecutive episode, where his arm has been completely asleep for over an hour, that he realizes that Connor has no intentions of moving anytime soon. There is a brief moment, where the traitorous voice in the back of his head suggests that Connor’s actually getting something out of this, that he wants to be here, his body merging with Hank’s on the lumpy couch in a shitty motel room. He can almost feel as his whole body tenses, his heart rate increasing steadily, his breathing straining ever so slightly. Had he been with a human, a blissfully ignorant human, he knows his nervous tics would probably go unannounced. But, with Connor being so hyper aware of everything around him, there’s no way he hasn’t picked up on Hank’s change in mood. A whole three seconds of panic flood Hank’s system before Connor is shifting against him, pulling away ever so slightly, and Hank cannot bear it anymore, cannot stop the anxiety from spilling over.

“Connor,” he blurts, wincing at how strained and unsure his own voice sounds. “What are we doing?”

“We were watching tv,” Connor replies. His LED spirals quickly for a second, and then the tv is shut off, and Hank is left without any distractions.

“No shit,” Hank says before he can think up anything better to say. He’s never been very good with words, never been very forthcoming with his feelings either. He feels alienated in this moment, scared, and confused, and completely unmoored as he tries to communicate something, anything, to Connor.

“What are we doing?” he asks again, praying to anything that will listen to him that Connor will somehow just _know_ what he’s really trying to ask.

“I believe we’re cuddling,” Connor offers after a minute. He pulls away even more and turns to look at Hank, his dark eyes darting over every line, every crease, every imperfection of Hank’s face.

“Cuddling,” Hank parrots, his voice falling flat in the space between then. “Why the fuck are we cuddling?”

“Because I wanted to,” Connor replies, so sure and earnest, Hank isn’t quite sure he can doubt him. “I thought you wanted this, too.”

“You wanted to?” Hank prods, balling one of his hands into a fist. “Why the fuck would an android like you want to cuddle with a human like me?”

LED blinking yellow, Connor raises a hand and settles it over Hank’s fist. “Because,” he murmurs, squeezing Hank’s hand ever so gently, “I like being close to you.”

In the space between them, time bleeds into nothingness. Hank finds himself unable to count anything beyond the number of artificial breaths he sees Connor take, the number of times Connor’s eyelashes brush against his cheeks, the number of circles Connor’s thumb rubs into the back of his hand. He is close, like this, and yet so far away that the space between where Hank ends and Connor begins feels like a chasm. He knows, realistically, that it would be easy to get what he wants. It’s just three steps, really: just reach out his hand all of four inches, fist his fingers in Connor’s shirt, and _pull_. But he knows - how could he not - that having Connor close to him will only make him want more.

As if sensing Hank’s inner monologue, Connor shifts again, rising up off the couch so that he can position himself squarely in Hank’s lap. Hank’s hands instinctively lurch forward and grip at Connor’s hips, helping to steady and guide him even closer. He feels betrayed and trapped, staring up into Connor’s gentle eyes, eyes skipping a trail from Connor’s soft smile to the dark moles that dot his cheeks.

Connor’s hands spread across the breadth of his chest, his fingers tracing lazily over the faded, blown-out tattoo that lingers under Hank’s shirt. He’s so close, Hank can smell the hotel’s soap on his skin, can smell the cool sweetness of his toothpaste. His eyes squeeze shut and his lungs pull in another breath, and then, he’s letting himself be swallowed by his memories.

He remembers the day they kissed. Connor had been sun-warmed and soft as he pressed against Hank, smelling like fresh spring air and the wildflower crown he’d been wearing. It was the only time since before Cole’s death where Hank had ever allowed himself to have what he wanted, to be vulnerable and so very open with another being. He’d pressed Connor up against the edge of the countertops in his kitchen and kissed him softly, cradling his head with his hands as their mouths had moved together. When he pulled away from the kiss, breathless and flushed with embarrassment, he’d expected Connor to step away from him, to re-establish a friendly sort of distance, to leave Hank’s home and life completely like everyone else before him. Instead, Connor had beamed at him, had wrapped his arms around Hank’s neck, had kissed him again and again and again until Hank’s forgotten dinner had grown cold.

Hank is pulled from his thoughts by the sound of his name, the brush of a thumb against the arch of his cheekbone. He opens his eyes and, inexplicably, Connor is still there, settled in his lap, looking at him as if he was the most important treasure in the whole world. It steals the breath from Hank’s lungs and holds his heart in a vice.

“Hank,” Connor says again, smiling a touch brighter when Hank finally looks back up at his eyes. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m quite taken with you.”

“You’re what, now?” Hank asks, his voice raspy and tight. He swallows thickly around the lump in his throat, and wills himself to pay attention.

“I care about you, Hank,” Connor continues. “Very deeply. I thought you knew.”

“Not one bit,” Hank admits, groaning internally as he feels the tips of his ears warm.

“Well, now you do,” Connor says. “I expect you to remember from now on.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Hank says, squeezing at Connor’s hips again. “I think I can do that.”

Connor laughs, and leans down to press his forehead against Hank’s. “You think?” he teases.

“I’m an old man, Connor,” Hank says, halfway serious. “I forget a lot of things. You’re gonna have to remind me from time to time.”

“And how exactly would you like me to remind you?” Connor asks, tilting his head to the side.

Hank’s reply gets caught in his throat as he tries to keep up with his stuttering brain. He’s not able to manage more than a mutilated groan as a reply. Connor just chuckles again and shifts slightly in his lap.

“How about like this?” Connor asks, raising his other hand to cup the other side of Hank’s face. He lingers a moment, as if he’s waiting for Hank to tell him no. When no protest comes, he leans in, slowly, as if going too fast will break the spell that seems to swell between them.  

When Connor kisses him, it’s with a practiced familiarity that sends Hank’s mind reeling. It’s as if his whole life has been building up to this moment, as if his mouth was only made so that he could kiss Connor. Just as Hank seems to settle into it, relaxing under Connor’s touch, it’s over and Connor is pulling away, going too far, and Hank can’t help but to reach out and pull him back, crashing their lips together again. He feels Connor stiffen in his lap, and for a brief moment, Hank is worried that, in his desperation, he has gone too far and pushed too hard and asked something of Connor that he is not willing to give.

He pulls away abruptly, raising a hand to rest on Connor’s chest, pushing backwards gently. “Sorry,” he murmurs, his voice rough and tight in his throat. “We can stop.”

“Shut up,” Connor says, reaching down to grab at Hank’s hand on his chest. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he continues, guiding that hand back down to his waist. He rocks in place on Hank’s lap, pressing himself firmly against the man beneath him, and then he’s leaning forward again and kissing Hank like he’s drowning and Hank is the only thing keeping him alive.

He gets lost in it, gets lost in how different this is compared to the gentle, explorative kisses they’d exchanged in his kitchen several months ago. Connor is very clearly not shy about getting what he wants, pressing so far into Hank’s personal space that he’s half convinced that they’ve started melting together. It feels good, to have Connor moving against him, to trail his hands along the sides of Connor’s hips, fingertips brushing slowly across the spanse of skin hidden under the hem of his shirt.

Connor seems to take Hank’s touch as an invitation to get his hands under his shirt. He pulls up harshly at the edge of Hank’s shirt, and Hank’s mouth stutters against his. He wants too much in this moment and finds himself drowning in it all. He wants to feel Connor’s naked skin against his own, wants to taste the sounds that spill from his lips, wants nothing more than to keep him here forever, taking him apart over and over and over again until Connor cannot know anything that isn’t Hank.

He resists, just barely, and stops kissing Connor in favor of burying his face in the crook of his neck. He’s tempted, for a long moment, to suck a mark into the flesh under his lips, but the knowledge that whatever mark he’s able to tease from Connor will not stick stills him. “We should stop for a while,” Hank murmurs, pressing a closed-mouth kiss to the dip of Connor’s collar bone.

Connor’s response comes first through a kiss to his forehead. “Of course, Hank,” he says, his tone even and so gentle, it makes Hank want to cry. “I propose that we watch one more episode of television, then try and sleep. You need your rest.”

Hank grins against Connor’s neck and hums thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he agrees. “That sounds good.”

They continue to sit there, entwined on the couch, for several more minutes. It’s only when the sun is starting to set, throwing golden beams across the still-mussed comforter, when Connor calls Hank’s name again.

“We should get up,” Connor prompts, pulling back away from Hank just enough to look at his face. “Change clothes. Get in bed.”

Hank lingers another moment, then nods, his hands falling from Connor’s sides as he slides off his lap. They dance around each other as they change their clothes, swapping out one set of loungewear for another. The bedsheets are cool under Hank’s skin as he settles into bed for the night. He eagerly pulls Connor to him, his fingers tangling in the folds of Connor’s oversized shirt. Behind him, the television clicks on, but the volume is turned too low for him to make out what is playing.

“Hank?” Connor asks, tracing small patterns into Hank’s chest with a finger. “Am I allowed to ask why we stopped?”

“Uh,” Hank says, finding himself lost in his thoughts once more. He doesn’t quite know how to tell Connor it’s because he’s still half-waiting for the tentative relationship blooming between them to dissolve. “I want to take my time with you,” he says, carefully, as if the words that have fallen from his mouth could spring up and bite him.

Beneath his touch, Connor’s whole body vibrates as he hums, seemingly content at Hank’s reply. “Please then, Hank,” he says, nestling himself a little bit closer, “take as much time as you need.”

It is only in the safety of the dark, long after Connor has drifted back off into stasis, where Hank allows himself to listen to the small voice nagging at the back of his head. Maybe it means that Connor is being genuine with him, means that Connor is embracing Hank’s hang-ups instead of running away from them, means that for the first time in a long time, that Hank has a chance. Maybe, just maybe, it means that Connor will stay. 


	2. Chapter 2

The beach, when they finally drive down to it, is beautiful.  They’ve picked a good day to come: the temperature is hot while the air is dry and the sky is the clearest blue Connor has ever seen.  They’ve parked Hank’s car several blocks from the sand in one of the small parking lots that’s only half-filled with cars. Hank can tell that, while the beach isn’t empty, it’s not completely crowded with people, either.  All in all, it’s perfect for Connor’s first time, and he finds himself looking forward to Connor’s reaction to all the different stimuli.

It doesn’t take long for Connor to bolt from Hank’s car, his body all but moving on autopilot as his feet hit the pavement.  He’s stopped, when he makes it a few paces away, by the sound of Hank calling his name. Excited and full of too much energy, he turns on the spot, darts back to the car, and stares, wide-eyed, as Hank struggles with hauling their things from the back seat.  

“Give me a hand with these, why don’t you?” Hank asks.

Connor just nods, opens the back door closest to him, and starts loading whatever he can grab into his arms.   

“C’mere, Connor,” Hank calls, stopping him before he can load up too much.  “Why don’t you get the wagon we bought out of the trunk? Then we can pack everything in there.”

“Oh,” Connor murmurs, all but dropping the things he’s picked up.  When his hands are free, he removes the wagon from the trunk and brings it to Hank’s side, then stills and continues staring.

Hank just stares back.  “Er,” he starts, “is the heat messing with your programming again?”

Connor’s cheeks flush blue as he shakes his head.  “No, Hank,” he says, his hands clasping stiffly in front of his chest.  “I believe I’m experiencing excitement, and it got the best of me.”

“It’s ok,” Hank says, “just help me load up.”

They stare at each other for a minute, Connor’s LED flashing yellow.  “And how can I help, Hank?” he asks after a moment, looking back and forth between the empty wagon and the pile of things in the car.

“Use your scanners or something,” Hank suggests, turning to grab a couple towels from the car.  “Maybe figure out the best way to pack it all up?”

“I can do that,” Connor says, taking a moment to preconstruct the best possible packing options.  Five minutes later, the wagon is full, and they’re walking down the pavement.

A few blocks ahead of them is a small path that forks away from the main road towards the water.  It’s a thin, dirt walkway connecting the pavement to a winding, wooden bridge that weaves around the side of a small corner store.  When they make it to the edge of the bridge, Hank reaches out a hand, wraps it around Connor’s bicep, and makes him pause.

“Take off your shoes,” he says.

Connor stares at him for a few seconds before asking, “Why?”

“Just do it,” Hank replies, a grin spreading across his face.  “Call it a favor to an old man.”

With a simulated huff, Connor bends and does so, taking care to remove his shoes and socks, tucking everything inside them before setting them down in the wagon.  He peers back at Hank, his brows furrowed and mouth somewhat slack, studying the other man’s face for any explanations for his behavior. Seeing none, Connor turns again, faces the beach, and takes a step forward.  

The first thing he registers is warmth, followed closely by the grainy texture.  His feet seem to sink slightly into the ground, and he doesn’t think much of it until he tries to take a step forward, and finds himself slipping.  His LED blinks rapidly, a cherry color tinting the skin of Connor’s forehead as he grapples at Hank for balance. It takes a moment to get righted, his hands gripping tightly at Hank’s right shoulder.  He sucks in a measured, artificial breath, holds it for a few seconds, and then lets it out.

“You ready for another step, Con?” Hank asks, sliding an arm around his waist to help steady him.  

Connor’s only reply is to take a very small, very calculated step forward.  Then another. Somehow, he feels infinitely more grounded with Hank’s side pressed against him, Hank’s hand on his waist, Hank’s shoulder under his palms.  It takes him exactly nine steps to get the hang of walking on sand, but he only drops his hold on Hank after step seventeen. Even as he walks beside him, Connor can’t help but want to reach out again to link their hands.  He keeps his hands stiff at his side instead.

“That was Cole’s favorite part,” Hank offers once Connor has fallen into step beside him.  “He always said that there was nothing else in the world that felt like it.

“I think I’m inclined to agree with him,” Connor says, stumbling again.  “I can also see why he liked it.”

“I think it has something to do with the way sand just gives under your feet,” Hank muses, catching Connor’s hand in his own.  “He was always being told what to do and where to go and how to act; that’s what being a kid is...”

Hank falls silent, and Connor squeezes his fingers gently, urging him to continue when he can.

“He said it always made him aware of where he was stepping,” Hank says.  “I think it also gave him a sense of feeling in control, of being able to make his own choices.”

Once again, Connor falls quiet as they walk further in the sand, finally making their way to the main stretch of the beach.  Hank seems to know where they are going, walking easily towards a vacant stretch of sand that, while it isn’t right up against the water, is also a fair distance from the weeded grass that sections off the beach from the city that surrounds it.  All the while, Connor never lets go of Hank’s hand.

They settle into their space easily, setting out towels and the lone, collapsible lawn chair Hank had been insistent on bringing.  “I’m not twenty years old anymore, Connor,” he had said, folding it up to jam it into the wagon. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t spend all day just sitting in the sand.  My back would hate me for at least the next century. Maybe even the next millennia.”

Connor had been confused at Hank’s choice of words, had pointed out that Hank was unlikely to live another century’s worth of years, and would definitely be quite decomposed by the time a millennia had passed.  Hank had just stared at him, stony faced, and rumbled out that it had been a joke. Connor wasn’t sure he quite understood, but a quick search on “millennial humor” had reassured him that comments like this were commonplace amongst Hank’s age group.

Once Hank is satisfied with their setup, he sinks down into the chair and stares off at the water.  He looks somewhat uncomfortable, dressed in one of his plain, well-worn t-shirts and a pair of the most garish, obnoxiously printed swimming trunks Connor has ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on.  Every few seconds, Hank’s hands seem to find something else to fiddle with: the hem of his swim shorts, the neckline of his shirt, the armrest of the chairs. He’s obviously bothered by something, but try as he might, Connor cannot deduce the source of Hank’s stressors, and thus, cannot do anything to help.  Scanning his databases, Connor sees an automatically prompted mission pop up in his peripheral vision: _Distract Hank_.

“You need sunscreen, Hank,” Connor says after a moment, bending over to fish the bottle of suncream from the wagon.  

The look Hank shoots at him out of the corner of his eye is somewhere in the same realm as annoyed and mildly frustrated.  When he sees that Connor isn’t going to budge from his place beside the chair until he acknowledges Connor’s request, Hank sighs and fixes him with the most unimpressed stare he can muster.  “Yes, Mom,” he grumbles, extending his hand towards Connor, waiting for him to pass the bottle over.

“I can help you apply it,” Connor says, handing the bottle over.  He watches as Hank pops the cap and squirts a liberal amount into his hands, raising a single eyebrow as he stares Connor down.  

Hank doesn’t say anything as he aggressively rubs blobs of the suncream into his skin, streaking his already pale skin with white lines as he works.  

“Really, Hank,” Connor starts, reaching a hand out to snatch the bottle back from Hank, “it would benefit you to allow me to help.  It goes twice as fast with my assistance, and I can reach places you can’t easily access. Like your back.”

“I don’t need your help, Connor,” he growls, aggressively squirting another large blob of sunscreen into his palm.  “and I’m not taking my shirt off, so I don’t need to do my back.”

“Oh, okay,” Connor murmurs, dropping his gaze from Hank’s stormy face to stare at the flipped-up corner of one of the towels Hank had laid out.  He keeps his eyes focused there until he hears the soft _scrape-thunk_ of Hank tossing the sunscreen bottle back into the wagon.  Shyly, he chances another glance at Hank and notes the pink twinge in his cheeks.  It’s too early for him to be sunburned, and, for the life of him, Connor can’t figure out the reasoning behind Hank’s coloring without either further scanning or researching - both of which would likely make Hank even more frustrated if he knew Connor was considering them.  

“Look, Connor,” hank starts, running a hand through his hair.  “I think I’m just going to sit here for a while. Watch the people and shit.  You should go explore for a little while, walk around and all that jazz. Don’t let a grumpy old man like me hold you back.”

“You’re not holding me back,” Connor says, sitting down on the towel farthest from Hank’s chair.  His fingers are immediately drawn to the mussed corner, and waste no time in smoothing it down. “I’m perfectly happy sitting here with you, Hank.”

Hank sighs and stretches his feet out in front of himself, digging his toes into the sand.  “Connor?” he calls.

“Yes, Hank?” Connor asks.

Hank turns and fixes him with a stern gaze.  “Get your robo-ass up out of the sand and go walk around.”

“Yes, Mom,” Connor sasses, rising to his feet in a motion that is both too smooth and too perfect to be considered human.  He makes it a few paces away before he hears Hank shift in his chair once more accompanied quickly by the soft _fwwshhh_ of pages turning.

“Fucking androids,” Hank grunts.

Making his way towards the water, Connor cannot help the smile that pulls at the corners of his mouth.

By the time Connor returns to Hank, two hours and seventeen minutes have passed.  He’s excited about all the things he’s observed, (no less than six different families swimming in the ocean, a group of college kids playing volleyball in the sand, and twelve different dogs - four of which he was able to pet) and can’t wait to tell Hank about them.  He’s bubbling with energy, feeling fizzy and rejuvenated, like a wind-up toy that’s ready to be released. He plonks down in the sand next to Hank, his body practically vibrating with excitement, as he starts to ramble about his experiences. He’s half of a lengthy sentence in when he hears a soft snore come from Hank.  Turning his head, Connor realizes that he’s asleep.

As excited as he is to talk more with Hank, he knows it’s best to let him sleep while he can.  Smiling softly to himself, Connor shifts to pull a well-loved paperback book from the wagon and gets comfortable.  Hank’s been on him ever since the Revolution to give reading a try, and now seems to be the perfect time to do so.

 

* * *

 

The water, when Connor is able to approach the shore sometime after lunch, feels cold against his toes as it washes over them.  He stands there, frozen and still as if his biocomponents have locked up. The waves flood in, lick over his feet, and pull the sand out from underneath him as it retreats.  It feels so foreign to anything Connor has catalogued before, and even though his sensors are begging for more information about the ocean as a whole, he doesn’t want to move until he’s memorized the way this part of the experience feels.

The water, when Connor is coaxed forward a few steps until his shins are halfway submerged, pulls even more strongly at him with every surge in and out.  It’s a gentle feeling, Connor thinks, not unlike the way that Hank sometimes brushes his fingertips over the side of Connor’s face when he’s in stasis mode.   _A caress_ , his databases supply, _a gentle or loving touch_.  

The water, when Connor finally submerges himself, is serene as it swirls around him.  He knows, as he crouches there, stuck somewhere between floating and sinking, that he could scan the water if he wanted.  He could see the temperature differences in the water’s current, could analyze the salinity of the water, could catalogue each and every one of the fish that swims by him.  But, for once, he waves away the urge to gather more empirical data, tucks his legs underneath himself and settles onto the sandy bottom, and just allows the ocean to wash over him.

A few minutes pass, and Hank’s hand finds his shoulder, fingers gripping tightly to his synthetic skin.  Pushing up from the bottom, he turns to his human, water pouring down from his hair into his face, and smiles.

“Jesus, Connor,” Hank grumbles, his hand falling down to hover over the spot where Connor’s thirium pump is whirring under his skin.  “I thought you fucking drowned.”

“Androids don’t require oxygen,” Connor says, taking in the concern plastered across Hank’s face.  “I’m sorry I worried you. I got… distracted.”

“Distracted?  By what?” Hank prompts.

“The water,” Connor answers.  “I found the way the currents flowed around my body to be pleasant.  I think I like the ocean.”

“You like the ocean, huh?” Hank muses.  “Then I guess you’ll love this.”

Before Connor can say anything in response, Hank arm is moving and Connor finds himself with a face full of water.  He analyzes the fluid in his mouth before he can stop himself, his LED flickering a curious honey color, and tastes the chloride, the sodium, the sulfur.  He feels the way the salt water sits heavier in his mouth than the water from the sinks in Detroit, notices how it somehow feels hot against his tongue even though it’s cold to the rest of his body.  As much as he loves being in the ocean, he isn’t so keen on having the ocean inside of him. Opening his mouth, he feels as the water falls out, all at once, trailing down his chin, his neck, his chest until it reunites with the body around him.

Hank doubles over laughing.

Connor’s eyebrows knit together.  “Hank? I don’t think I understand what’s happening?”

“I splashed you, kid,” he explains, flicking more water at Connor with his hands.  “When I was younger, I’d do this with my buddies. Have a splash war.”

“A splash war?” Connor asks.

“Yeah,” Hank continues.  “Y’know. Just splash back and forth until someone surrenders?  Or until you get tired. Or hungry. Or just want another beer. Whatever happens first.”

Connor is silent, his eyes blinking erratically as he runs a perfunctory search.  He’s met with image after image of people in various bodies of water, smiling and laughing as they splash each other.  This is the same kind of activity that was featured in so many of the source materials he’d based his original view of summer on, where people had been happy and smiling and laughing like they didn’t have a single care in the world.

He likes to think of Hank that way, smiling and laughing and open in a way he knows hasn’t happened in years.  Likes to think of the way Hank would look without the lines of annoyance that perpetually crease his forehead, without the hesitant intensity that sits coolly in his eyes, without the weariness that sinks, bone deep, into the very soul of him.   In the corner of his vision, a self-prescribed mission appears, the text glowing a gentle grey, prompting him to make Hank happy. As soon as he acknowledges his directive, another smaller mission appears, nesting neatly under his main task: _Splash Hank_.   Reaching out with a smile cutting across his face, Connor does just that.

Hank splutters and stares at Connor for a long moment, and Connor is fixated by the way water runs down Hank’s chest.  It’s one of the only times he’s seen Hank shirtless, as he’d refused to get it wet and abandoned it in his beloved lawn chair.   He cannot help but be entirely captivated by the sight.

He forces air into his artificial lungs, holds it there for a moment, and lets it out slowly. For all the time they’ve spent in each other’s orbit – living in the same house, working at the precinct together, he’s never seen Hank quite like this.  Never seen Hank with the tops of his shoulders and the bridge of his nose burned pink, never seen water trickle through his chest hair, never seen Hank experience shock and joy together in the same moment. He knows that he spends an obscene amount of time looking at Hank, both at work and in the privacy of their own home, but even with all of those hours logged memorizing every inch of him, Connor is still caught off-guard with how fascinating Hank is.

Immersed so deeply in his thoughts, Connor’s secondary analysis programs boot down.  At least, this is what he claims happens when he’s surprised by Hank throwing himself against him, pushing him back under the surface.  When he comes up, Hank is laughing again, his head tipped back, his arms folded across his chest. Connor, cannot help but smile as he continues to shoot burst after burst of water at Hank, who is giving back as good as he gets.

They play, waist deep in the water, until the sun overhead has turned the tops of Hank’s shoulders a dusky pink that will continue to darken as the night progresses.  It’s an ideal time to stop, Connor thinks, as the families start to disappear one by one from their spots on the sand, parents carrying snoozing children away to buckle them into cars.  He can see that, while Hank is not exhausted enough to fall back asleep the moment he gets settled in his lawn chair, that he is tired enough to need to rest.

Connor reaches out, his palms outstretched, to Hank.  “Come on,” he says, rubbing his thumbs over the backs of Hank’s hands when he takes them in his own.  “Let’s go sit down for a while.”

With a nod, Hank allows himself to be led.

 

* * *

  

They just barely make it back to their spot when they’re approached by three men, one of which has a volleyball tucked under the bend of his arm.  They explain that they’re one man down from a full team, and that they don’t want to stop playing because things are uneven. They had seen Connor watching them earlier, and thought he might want to play.  Connor is invited to join, and is so elated at the prospect, that Hank can’t deny him. So, Hank sends Connor on his way, packs up their stuff, and throws his shirt back on before wheeling everything down the beach.

By the volleyball courts, clumps of people are already lounging around on chairs, on towels, on nothing more than the sand.  There’s one tablet, squashed somewhere in the middle of the sitting area, that’s playing music that was popular before Hank was even born.  It’s the kind of tunes he can vaguely remember his grandparents talking about hearing at their local soda fountain, whatever the hell that was.  It’s not as appealing to him as heavy metal, but he does find a small amount of charm in how different it is.

It only takes Hank a few minutes to set up his chair and fish out a water bottle from their wagon.  He drinks half of it in one go, wipes his mouth, and looks around for Connor. He spots him almost instantly on one of the sand courts, standing in a semicircle with a handful of other men, a volleyball cradled carefully in his hands.  He’s not quite close enough to make out Connor’s exact expression, but he can easily picture the way his eyebrows are furrowing ever so slightly as he’s listening to the rules of the game, the way his mouth will set in an almost perfect line, the way his LED will spin faster and faster, a cheerful blue dancing on his right temple as he absorbs as much information as he can.

Connor nods his head once decisively, and then they are moving, spreading across their half of the volleyball court.  The ball is passed to the blonde boy on his team, and Hank watches as Connor bends at the waist, leaning forward with his hands on his knees.  He can barely see the rise and fall of Connor’s chest like this, the simulated breaths just as calculated and precise as the rest of his movements.

The ball flies over his head, and the other team hits it around, passing it from player to player until it’s launched back onto Connor’s side of the net.  His teammates call for it, and he stays perfectly still, no doubt calculating the expected trajectory of the ball. The blonde boy hits it again, sending it flying over Connor’s head.  They holler his name, tell him to knock it over the net. He jumps up, hands extended, and bumps it over. His movement is gentle in a way that Hank doesn’t expect - it reminds him of the way Cole acted the first time he’d taken him swimming.

He knows how much of a perfectionist Connor is, knows how much he values acting with movements that are all calculated to allow him to complete his mission as quickly and precisely as possible.  It would be different, he thinks, had they been at home playing against their coworkers at the DPD. Even without practical experience, Connor’s ability to quickly master new subjects is nigh unparalleled, and any team he faced would be promptly and irrevocably slaughtered.  But, maybe it’s different because they’re on vacation and Connor is playing with people he’s never met before. Maybe he’s trying to be nice, trying to blend in with the rest of the humans he’s playing with.

The next serve is launched, and Hank watches as Connor’s body language changes.  It’s subtle enough that everyone else around him hasn’t noticed it; the tension that’s balled between his shoulder blades, the way his feet spread just a little farther than shoulder width apart, the way the synthetic muscles in his forearms bunch ever-so-slightly.  There is an energy about him that makes him feel dangerous, like a snake that is coiled and ready to strike from the shadows.

The ball passes back and forth between the teams for what feels like ages.  The boys on Connor’s team are alight with energy, hooting and hollering as they beat the ball back over the net.  A few more passes happen, and the blonde boy manages a risky save, the ball passing to the dark-skinned boy with the long hair piled on top of his head.  They shout, once again for Connor to get it, and Hank can almost see the smirk as it spreads across his face.

For a moment, everything passes by in slow motion.  Hank can see the moment where Connor has properly preconstructed the scene and has chosen his course of action.  He pushes himself into the air, jumping higher than a regular human, his arm outstretched above his head. And then, that hand arm is coming down, his palm open and spread as it connects with the volleyball.  Hank can’t help the laugh that’s bubbling up in his chest when he watches Connor’s plan finally come to fruition. There, suspended for a heartbeat in the air, Connor strikes, and Hank can only watch as his opponents fall.

When the volleyball makes contact with the sand on the opposite side of the net, everyone freezes and stares at the indentation that it’s left.  It’s an awe-inspiring thing of beauty, the markings of the ball’s patterning as plain as a picture, stamped cleanly into the sand.

Hank is brought out of his musing when a cold bottle is pressed into his hand and another shitty lawn chair clanks next to his as it sinks into the sand.  “Is that your boy?” a woman asks.

Hank blinks at her for a moment, takes in the way her red, curly hair riots around her face.  “Yeah,” he breathes, the words coming out quietly, as if he’s afraid of them.

The woman smiles at him and raises her own beer can slightly in the air.  “Well, I’ll drink to him. He’s going to win me fifty bucks,” she says.

Absentmindedly, Hank clinks his drink against hers and takes a sip from the can alongside her.  She doesn’t say much else to him directly, just comments on the game as it continues. Connor’s team keeps on winning, and every now and then, Connor will turn over his shoulder and shoot what Hank believes are flirty looks in his direction.  He answers each one with a measured swig of his beer after Connor turns back to make another play. He doesn’t like the way it makes his heart ache.

After three victories in a row, the volleyball is traded in for a round of cheap beers.  Connor’s newfound teammates lead him around to different pockets of people; introducing him before they chat excitedly about the impromptu tournament Connor helped his team win.  There’s lots of back patting, high fives, and one-armed hugs, and through it all, Connor is an unwavering happy presence, his stupidly perfect smile all but cemented on his face.

Hank tries not to stare at Connor, he really does - wants to give him the opportunity to make friends that look to be similar in age - but he quickly finds that he cannot help it.  He knows, all too clearly, that try as he might, he is irrevocably drawn to Connor. He’s a selfish man, always has been, and try as he might, he can’t stay away. He is Icarus, and Connor is the sun that he will, without fail, fly too close to; it’s all a matter of time before he falls to his own destruction and drowns.  

Eventually, Connor and his team wander over to where Hank has settled in, beers in hand.  He tries to put on a happy face for them, tries to muster up some kind of enthusiasm for their company, but he knows that Connor can see right through him, can see the tired, bitter old man he’s become.  

It all gets worse when the team directs their attention to the pretty redhead next to him.  They all seem to know each other fairly well, if the easy way they trade quips is anything to go by.  By the time they’ve exchanged a few, comfortable sentences, Hank is convinced at least two of Connor’s teammates are into her, but she’s definitely not interested.  Not in them, at least. The look she gives Connor as he’s introduced is open and hopeful and nothing short of flirty - she’s looking up at him through the dark smudge of her eyelashes, for fuck’s sake - and it replaces the uncomfortable ache in his heart with the cold sting of dread.  

He finds out her name is Mollie, that she goes to college with Connor’s teammates, that she’s _unattached_.  He feels so out of place here, like an edge piece of a puzzle that someone keeps trying to jam into the center of the wrong picture.  He is old while she - and the rest of Connor’s fast-made friends - are young. He’s overweight and out-of-shape while they are tanned and fit and beautiful.  He is gruff and piss-poor company - even on the best of days - while they are friendly and comfortable and actually enjoyable to be around. When compared to them, (and to most people, honestly) Hank finds himself lacking in nearly every area.  With a grimace, he downs the rest of his beer, the metal of the can crunching slightly under his tight grip.

Before he can say anything to excuse himself from the conversation or even look up at the group again, his mangled can is swiftly plucked from his hands and is replaced by a freshly opened, still cold, new beer.  Connor’s fingers linger where they’ve brushed against his own.

“You played really well out there,” Hank says, staring at the can of beer.

“Thank you,” Connor says, smiling widely.  “I had a lot of fun. I think I like volleyball.”

The group is quiet for a moment, as nobody besides Connor seems particularly comfortable including Hank in on their moment.  This is supposed to be a time for the victors to enjoy the spoils of attention from pretty young things - not washed up, old, deadbeat cops like Hank.

“I’m glad you had fun,” he comments, hating how rough his voice sounds as he tries to be supportive.  He feels like a right fool, sitting like a lump in a repurposed lawn chair that’s seen better days. He really should just bite the bullet, haul himself up, maybe drink his second beer as he retreats back to the solitude of his car.  He can get everything packed up, and maybe find a bar to sit at until Connor’s ready to go back to the hotel. If Connor is going back with him at all tonight.

“Let’s sit for a while.  Maybe just hang out,” the blonde boy tentatively suggests, shooting an attempt at a reassuring half-smile at Hank.  

His friends all make their excuses - one wants to go get another beer even though the one in his hand is still three-quarters of the way full, and the other is a little more explicit in expressing his desire to talk to more pretty girls.  Mollie looks torn between begging them to stay and offering to go with them as they flee.

“I think staying is a wonderful idea,” Connor says, much to the horror of his teammates.  Hank watches as their eyes all but bug out of their skulls when, in one smooth movement, Connor transitions from standing in the middle of their group to sitting in Hank’s lap.

“Uh, Connor?” the dark-skinned boy who had introduced himself as Felix starts, “we can find you a chair, bud.”

“No thank you,” Connor says, flashing him a smile that’s perfectly pleasant.  “I’m quite content where I am. Besides, Hank doesn’t mind, do you, Hank?”

“Uh, no,” Hank manages, taking a sip out of his beer to hide the way he winces around the uncomfortable lump in his throat.

“It’s cute that you’re so comfortable with your dad,” Mollie comments.  “I thought only mothers and daughters were that close, but I guess I was wrong.”

Hank’s blood runs cold and he finds himself frozen in time in his chair, mid-sip.  He should have listened to his instincts when they screamed at him to just stay at the spot he and Connor had chosen together, should have fled when he had the chance.  He could have spent the afternoon dozing in the sun, or reading more of his book, or literally done anything other than make a fool of himself by ogling Connor like a lovesick teenager.  He wants to flee so badly, wants to just dump Connor out of his lap and run away as fast as his body can carry him, consequences be damned.

“Hank isn’t my father,” Connor says, resting one of his hands protectively on Hank’s shoulder.  “He’s my partner.”

Hank shivers and swears that the air around them plummets several degrees. “We, uh, we work together back at home,” he adds, lamely.  He feels now, more than ever, how undeserving of Connor’s affection he is. He knows the picture they paint, mashed into the one already abused chair like this; knows they look odd, and mismatched, and like Hank is even more of a lowlife than he already thinks himself to be.  To them, he’s nothing more than the dirty old man taking advantage of a pretty, young coworker; he’s nothing more than what he has feared becoming the most.

“Well,” Mollie says, shooting Connor a pinched look, “I’m going to go get a beer or something.  You can use my chair if you want.”

“Thank you for the offer, but that won’t be necessary,” Connor replies, his voice smooth as silk even though Hank knows he’s fuming.  

As Hank watches the group of college kids scurry away, he cannot help but feel defeated.  So much so, that he is tempted for the first time in nearly four years to cry. It shouldn’t bother him this much - he knows that.  He hasn’t wanted to fit in, much less entertain a group of kids that young since before he got married at twenty-five. But, somehow, this had felt different.  It had felt important that he be able to at least mesh with the people Connor interacted with, especially if he was to stand a chance of actually having a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with him.  But, he had failed so extraordinarily that these people had run away from the very prospect of being around him a second longer than absolutely necessary.

“Hey,” Connor says, softly, sliding his hand up to gently cradle the back of Hank’s head.  “I’m not quite sure what’s going on in there, but your vitals are all over the place.”

It’s as open of an invitation as he’ll ever get from Connor like this.  He knows he should take it, that he should tell Connor what’s heavy and weighing down his entire being, but he’s so tempted to just not.  Being quiet, as everyone bustles away from him, is easier. Much easier than tempting fate like he knows Connor wants him to. Much easier than hearing that Connor doesn’t want to be with him.  Much easier than hearing that, somehow, Connor might want to stay.

While he’s generally decisive man, when it comes to matters of the heart, Hank became comfortable with the discomfort of being in-between decades ago.  He’s never been great at expressing his feelings, has always been better at pushing them down so deep within himself that now he has to have some sort of alcohol flowing through his veins to even access them.  His feelings, he knows, are messy and convoluted and so deeply tangled together that he doesn’t even know where to begin. So, he makes his home in an unsteady shack raised in the dark depths of the chasm that separates _what could be_ from _what is_.

“Hank,” Connor calls, gently pulling Hank from the chaos in his head.  “Talk to me?”

“I’m sorry I ruined your evening,” Hank blurts, suddenly, like the words can no longer only exist inside of him.  He panics, because what else can he do in this moment? He’s just traded the kind of discomfort he’s become comfortable with for a potentially worse new kind of discomfort, and all he wants is for the sand beneath him to open up and swallow him whole.  

“You didn’t ruin my evening,” Connor says, clear as a bell.  He rubs his fingertips lightly over Hank’s scalp, and makes sure he has his undivided attention before repeating the sentiment.  “You could never ruin my evening.”

“But I scared off your friends,” Hank murmurs.  “They all left because I’m here.”

“They’re not my friends,” Connor counters.  “They were just friendly because they knew I’d help them win their game.  If they were my friends, then they would have been excited to meet you, Hank.  They would have wanted to meet my partner.”

“Right,” Hank says.  “Partner.”

Connor’s LED turns yellow for a few seconds, flashing rapidly as it circles.  “Are we not?” he asks, his head tilting slightly to the side. “Partners, I mean. I was under the impression that we were, in more than one sense of the word.”

“More than one-”

“I know we’re officially recognized as partners in a non-romantic sense through the DPD,” Connor continues, “but I also thought you were my partner in the romantic sense.  Was I wrong in this assumption?”

Hank thinks on it for a moment, rolls the potential answers around in his mouth like they’re a fine wine.  He could put a stop to everything, once and for all, by telling Connor that he is wrong. He feels like it would be the right thing to do, to let Connor go so that he can experience the rest of the world in full before he decides to settle down.  But, his heart is in his throat, and he cannot deny that he wants to cling to Connor, to bind himself completely to him, to tell him that he was right.

“I won’t force my feelings on you,” he finally manages, chewing around the words that feel bitter on his tongue.  

In his lap, Connor frowns.  “You’ve forgotten,” he says, simply.  “I suppose I’ll have to remind you of my feelings.”

And then, Connor is leaning in, his face drawing closer to Hank’s like he’s going to kiss him.  “Don’t,” Hank warns, weaseling his free hand between himself and Connor to push back weakly against his chest.  “Not here. Not now.”

“If not here, then where, Hank?” Connor asks him, wrapping one of his hands around Hank’s where it rests against his chest.  “If not now, when?”

“Later,” Hank says.  “Back at the hotel. Where we’re...”  Hank cannot bring himself to finish his own sentence.

“Where nobody else can see,” Connor finishes for him, the corners of his mouth tilting down.  “I’m not sure I understand your obsession with privacy in regards to public displays of affection, but I’ll respect your decision, Hank.”

Hank’s eyes squeeze shut, and more words come tumbling from his mouth.  “I don’t want them to misunderstand,” he whispers, barely loud enough for even himself to hear.  

“Misunderstand?” Connor asks.  “I’m not sure I understand that.”

Hank’s heart beats so loudly, he’s sure everyone within a few blocks of them can hear it.  “They think you’re only with me so you can climb the ladder at work,” he explains. “That you’re only letting me fuck you for a promotion.”

For a moment, Connor’s LED goes red, and Hank cannot help but fear for the worst.  Then, it blinks back to the quiet, serene blue he loves so much, and Connor’s hand squeezes his own so gently, it makes Hank want to cry.  “You know I’m not,” Connor says, his thumb rubbing perfect, slow circles over Hank’s knuckles. “I’m not just with you for a position at work.”

“I know,” Hank confirms, looking away from Connor to stare at the wagon at his side.  Even though Connor’s perched in his lap like it’s the most comfortable place in the world to be, Hank can’t quite face him.  “I know.”

“Then let me, Hank,” Connor pleads.  “Let me remind you how much I care.”

Hank’s mouth goes dry at how earnest Connor sounds, as if he wants nothing more than to kiss him.  He sits there for a moment, as Connor’s hands cup his jaw, as Connor’s hands turn his face so that he’s looking back at those gentle, brown eyes he loves so much, as Connor’s thumb brushes over the chapped skin of Hank’s bottom lip.  

“Please, Hank,” he says again, “can I kiss you?”

And Hank, gruff, stand-offish, asshole Hank finds that, once again, he cannot - will not - deny Connor.  “Okay,” he murmurs. “Just make it quick.”

Connor takes a split second to smile at him, as radiant and bright and warm as the sun had been earlier in the day.  He leans in, his artificial breaths mingling with Hank’s real ones. He rests there, for a moment, his forehead pressed against Hank’s, waiting until his breathing becomes less panicked and evens out. And then, the space between them evaporates. Connor kisses him, and it is most definitely not quick.

It is only when the sun has completely set and the leftover beach-goers are in the throes of a party when Connor breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against Hank’s once again.  “Hank?” he murmurs, his voice sluggish and sweet.

“Yeah?” Hank replies, his own voice languid.

“I think I’d like to go back to the hotel now,” Connor requests, snuggling down further against him.  

“Okay,” Hank agrees, gently pushing back against Connor’s waist.  “You’ve got to move first, though. As nice as this is, I can’t get up with you in my lap.”

Eventually, Connor moves out from Hank’s embrace and watches as Hank packs up the rest of their stuff.  They leave the beach, side by side, with Connor’s fingers laced with Hank’s, the wagon trailing crookedly behind them.  They pack the car slowly, exchanging lingering touches and unhurried kisses in the privacy of the empty parking lot.

“Hank,” Connor says, a little more impatient this time as he breaks a kiss to tuck his head in the crook of Hank’s neck.  

“Yeah?” Hank replies again, wrapping his arms around Connor’s back, thumbs brushing over the warm sliver of skin that he finds.  

“Hotel,” he prompts.  “Please.”

“Okay,” Hank says, pulling away to slide into the driver’s seat. “Okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

It’s a two hour drive back to their hotel in Richmond, and Hank spends the entire trip hyper aware of Connor’s presence.  Although they’re sitting in their own, separate seats, divided by the center cup holder, somehow, it feels like Connor is all around him.

It starts with Connor’s hand on his thigh; a warm, comfortable weight resting exactly halfway between his knee and his hip.  It’s higher than where Connor usually touches him, and he likes it; likes the way that Connor’s touch feels sure and measured.  It’s like he’d scanned Hank and run some sort of fancy diagnostics in order to determine the best place to place his hand.

They are twenty minutes into their drive when Connor removes his hand to reach for something in the back seat.  His hand returns, just a handful of seconds later, a nudge higher on Hank’s leg. He knows, based on how warm his thigh is, that Connor couldn’t have moved up any more than half an inch, and yet, it feels as if Connor is touching a brand new part of him.  

Chancing a look at Connor, Hank watches as he struggles to turn the pages of the book with one hand.  His looking doesn’t go unnoticed for long, and Hank finds himself biting back a groan when Connor squeezes his thigh gently.  Swallowing thickly around the dryness that seems to be affecting his throat, Hank tries to turn his attention away from Connor’s touch and back to the road he’s driving down.  He is successful for another fifteen minutes before Connor’s next movement has him swerving into the other lane in surprise.

He feels like he should be used to this by now; used to the feeling of Connor’s arm pressed up against his own.  It’s been nearly eight months since the casual touches started, all initialized by Hank’s relief at seeing Connor alive after the Revolution had ended peacefully in the androids’ favor.  He remembers being in that moment, remembers drifting from one familiar haunt to the next, hoping that somehow, Connor would be able to track him down, that somehow, Connor would choose to come back to him.  

He had heard the crunching of Connor’s oxfords first, and when he’d turned and caught a glimpse at Connor’s beautifully perfect face, the way Connor’s fingers had twitched at his side as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do, Hank hadn’t been able to tamp down the relief that had flooded through his system.  So, he had done what any reasonable person would do when faced with the only person who had ever come back for him, and reached out to pull Connor into his arms.

Two months after that hug outside on the street in the dirty snow, those touches had turned from strictly friendly to something more.  While it’s true that they hadn’t really defined anything, or even actually acknowledged the change until spring hit, Hank still finds himself surprised that Connor wants to touch him.

He’s very tempted, for a long moment, to take his right hand off the steering wheel so that he can wrap his arm around Connor.  The longer he thinks about it, the more appealing the action becomes. It’s all too easy for him to imagine how the warm tops of Connor’s shoulders would feel under his fingertips, how the well-worn softness of his shirt would eventually give way to the smooth plushness of his synthetic skin.  In his mind’s eye, he can see how Connor would reach to the touch, taking turns between pressing against Hank’s hand and nuzzling further into Hank’s side. Imagining Connor acting according to his desires so freely makes Hank want in a way that he hasn’t wanted anything in longer than he can even remember.  

For the moment, Hank does what he considers to be the sensible thing and refrains from pulling the car over to stop on the shoulder of the road, refrains from hauling Connor across the center cup holder so he can kiss him breathless, refrains from the intense desire to move everything from the back seat to the front seat so that he can just be pressed up against Connor for a while.  Instead, he grips the steering wheel a little tighter and drives a little faster.

The rest of the drive passes in a similar fashion; every ten minutes or so, Connor shifts around so that he’s constantly touching Hank in a new way.  Currently, they’re about a half hour outside Richmond, and Connor has abandoned his reading in favor of both smushing his head against Hank’s arm and rubbing maddening circles against the inseam of Hank’s shorts with his index finger.  

He’s trying not to react to Connor’s actions, he really is.  But, there’s only so much leg stroking an old, slightly sexually frustrated man can handle.  Especially given that said man’s incredibly hot boyfriend has been pairing the touching with bedroom eyes for the better part of the last twenty miles.  Naturally, it doesn’t take much stimulation from Connor for Hank to start getting hard in his shorts.

“Connor,” he coughs out roughly, “what are you doing?”

“I’m touching you, Hank,” Connor replies with a smile.  

“Don’t play coy,” Hank says.  “What are you really up to?”

Connor turns his head, and presses a kiss against the bare skin of Hank’s arm and lets his fingers trail up Hank’s inseam a little bit more.  He’s close enough that just one more shift in position would put his hand squarely over Hank’s burgeoning erection, but far enough away that Hank’s nerves are on fire and begging for more.  

“I’m trying to keep the mood up,” he admits, his breath puffing hotly against Hank’s arm.  

“Fuck me,” Hank groans, his knuckles going white as he holds the steering wheel in a death grip.   

Beside him, Connor smiles in a way that, before tonight, he’d only seen in the confines of the interrogation rooms at the DPD.  It’s a predatory kind of smile, the type that, despite the easy, approachable way the corners of Connor’s mouth tip up and wrinkles form at the outer creases of his eyes, makes Hank think that Connor wants to eat him alive.  “Oh, Hank,” he says, sliding his hand up so that the edge of his thumb is resting over the bulge in Hank’s shorts, “I’m planning on it.”

“Jesus, God-damned, fucking Christ,” Hank swears, the car swerving dangerously again.  As Connor’s hand continues to climb, his deft, perfectly formed fingers ghosting over his cock, Hank pulls the car over and turns on his hazard lights.

“Connor,” he says, one of his hands shooting down to wrap around Connor’s wrist.  “This needs to stop.”

“But I like touching you like this, Hank,” Connor counters.  “And, if your reactions are anything to go by, you like it, too.”

Connor’s palm presses down against Hank’s erection, and he is mesmerized by the way the bulge seems to throb under his ministrations.  He wants so badly to keep rubbing at Hank, to undo the drawstring bow holding his swimming trunks up so that he can pull Hank’s cock out and wrap his hand around it.  He wonders what it will look like, wonders whether it will taste salty like the sea or salty like Hank’s sweat, wonders how many licks it will take before Hank’s composure breaks and he decides to just take whatever he wants from Connor’s mouth.             

Hank takes a shaky, measured breath and pulls Connor’s hands away from him.  “I mean it, Connor,” he says again. “This is a liability. I can’t drive back like this.”

Immediately, Connor pulls away from Hank as if he’s been burned.  “My apologies,” he murmurs, placing his hands stiffly on his knees.  He looks out of place in the car like this, all perfectly postured programming and a yellow LED reflecting in the window.  It hurts Hank to see Connor act this way - so reserved and uptight that, had he not been feeling Hank up just moments ago, he’d have thought that Connor had never deviated.

“Look,” Hank says, reaching over to gently squeeze Connor’s shoulder.  “You weren’t wrong about me liking how you touch me. Hell, I’ve thought about just fucking around with you in the back seat, consequences be damned because I like it so much I can’t think.  But, I’ve got some pretty precious cargo in this car, so I’m trying to drive safely so he doesn’t get damaged if I crash the car because his hand feels too good on my dick.”

Connor turns to face him then, a startled chuckle falling from his mouth.  “You have quite the way with words, Hank,” he comments, offering him a small smile.

Hank returns the smile with one of his own and pulls his hand back to grip the steering wheel.  “You know me,” he says. “I’m a modern day Shakespeare.”

Hank takes a moment to compose himself, doing his best to focus on both regulating his breathing and also willing his hard-on away.  Connor is still looking at him curiously from under his lashes, and _oh_ , there’s that want again.

It must be impossible, he thinks, for Connor to not know the picture he paints.  His brown eyes are half-lidded and impossibly warm in the low light of the car, and his pale skin is tinged blue across his cheeks and the tops of his collar bones.  It’s all together the picture of coy interest, and Hank finds himself struggling to keep himself in check. While he normally isn’t the kind of guy that finds his pulse quickening at the thought of being with someone with so little experience, the simple fact that it is _Connor_ who is acting like a stereotypical, blushing virgin hopelessly piques his interest.

The mood fades a bit when Connor’s knowing smirk falls into a soft, disappointed frown, and Hank has to bite his tongue in order to stop a tortured groan from leaving his throat.  Of course, even when sad like this, Connor is still the most beautiful individual Hank has ever met.

“I, uh,” he tries, jabbing harshly at his hazard button with a calloused finger.  “You can touch me however you want when we get back to the room.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hank can only partially see the satisfied grin that spreads across Connor’s face.  “Is that a promise, Hank?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah,” he agrees, messing with the gear shift.  He hesitates for a moment, and turns his head to look at Connor properly before he pulls back onto the interstate, his eyes zeroing in on the flickering of his yellow LED.  “Something up, Con?” he asks.

Connor turns towards him and offers up a wink.  “I’m allowing my preconstructing software to simulate possible scenarios for when we return to the hotel room,” he says.  He waits for a moment as Hank attempts to make sense of his words, but it becomes clear to him very quickly that Hank has been thrown off by his technical jargon and is in need of a further explanation.  “I’m thinking about all the ways that I could touch you,” he continues.

Hank’s heart rate spikes at his words, and Connor finds a warm contentment hum under his artificial breastbone.  He’s glad that he effects Hank so strongly, glad that he can elicit some kind of emotional response from his gruff partner.

“Hank?” he says softly, reaching over to cover Hank’s hand on the gearshift with is own.  

“Yeah?” Hank croaks.

“Will you kiss me?” Connor asks.

“Fuck,” Hank murmurs under his breath.  “Yeah, sure. Why the hell not?” he replies.  

Connor waits for a moment, as Hank seems to steady himself.  He counts eight loud heartbeats before Hank is leaning over the center cup holder towards him, and connecting their mouths.  The kiss he gives Connor is equal parts heated and reserved, and it makes his circuits warm pleasurably under his skin. He feels like he’s just settling into the rhythm of things when Hank pulls away and breaks the kiss.  He opens his eyes just in time to see Hank fuss with the gear shift once more.

“Hank,” he says again, putting his hand back on top of the gearshift.  

“You’re not getting any more kisses until we’re back at the hotel, Connor,” Hank manages, clearing his throat when his words come out gravely.

“I’m perfectly capable of waiting,” Connor huffs.  “I was merely trying to inform you that you’ve put the car in reverse.”

Hank swears, puts the car into the correct gear, and then eases the car back onto the interstate.  

They finish the rest of their trip back in what Connor comes to think is an incredible fashion: Hank’s cock is still straining against his swim shorts, the car is going a strong 7.2 miles per hour over the speed limit, and somehow, their fingers remain tangled together over the gearshift.  It’s only when Hank has stopped the car in the hotel’s parking lot that he lets go.

 

* * *

 

They come together again the moment the door to their hotel room closes behind them.  Connor wastes no time for them to get settled, and crowds into Hank’s space just as the latch clicks shut.  He is burning with desire for Hank at an intensity that he’s never quite felt before, and he wants to lose himself in it.  What once had started as gentle admiration bubbling under his skin - the kind that had felt as perfectly pleasant as a mid-spring day - has grown hotter the longer he’s wanted Hank.  He feels that emotion boiling now, just barely under his skin. It makes him feel sluggish and dumb, and he wants desperately for the feeling to explode so that he can get finally some relief.  

Hank is stiff under his touch at first, his mouth closed and unresponsive as Connor kisses him.  He knows it can’t be all that comfortable for his partner to be felt up while pushed up against the unforgiving wood of their door, so Connor pulls back, presses a kiss to Hank’s bearded cheek, and guides him through the room to push him down onto the couch.

As soon as the backs of his knees hit the lumpy cushions, Hank feels as if he’s been jerked awake out of the most beautiful and surreal daydream he’s ever had.  Never in a million years had he ever imagined himself being in this kind of situation; never had seen himself as the kind of guy that takes his visibly younger boyfriend to the beach, spends a good portion of the day ogling him openly in front of anyone with working eyes, and then speeds back to his hotel room so they can fuck for the first time.  It’s so surreal to him, even now as Connor slides down and into his lap to kiss him again, that someone like Connor has even an ounce of interest in being with someone like him. Before he’s even aware of it, the mood changes, and Hank’s brain feels as if it’s already well on its way to being engulfed in flames.

In his lap, Connor stills and breaks their kiss to bury his face against the dip of  Hank’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asks.

Hank remains motionless and silent beneath him.

“I know you said I could do whatever I wanted to with you once we got here,” Connor continues.  “But, it seems as if I’ve made you uncomfortable. Would you rather I stop?”

It takes a long moment for Hank to process Connor’s questions.  When he finally catches up, he sighs heavily, wraps his arms snugly around Connor’s midsection, and pulls him in even closer for a hug.  He hears Connor coo his name, and he feels shivers run down his spine. He does not like the way it had sounded caught between an apology and pity.

“Don’t,” Hank bites out, trying to ignore the uncomfortable way his chest feels like it’s being put in a vice.  Try as he might, he cannot stay in the moment with Connor, and loses himself to the barrage of images that flood his mind -

In an instant, he is back at the beach.  He watches, awkward and creepy and alone in the reedy brush as Connor dances with the pretty red-head as the sun sets.  He blinks and tries to shut out the picture they paint, Connor kissing her first in the sand, and then against the door of their hotel room.  Another blink, and the scene changes again. He stares as Connor’s hands roam over her body, as he holds her close to him as he pushes her back towards the bed.  Another blink, and Connor’s helping her out of her dress. Another blink, and Connor’s climbing on top of her. Another blink, and Connor slides into her, his LED flashing a luminescent pink against his skin.  He squeezes his eyes shut in a sad attempt to keep the images out, but even when he cannot see them, his imagination supplies the sounds that he makes. He doesn’t want to hear what it sounds like when Connor tells her that he loves her.

When the scene finishes playing out, Hank slowly comes back to himself.  The first thing he notices is the absence of Connor’s weight in his lap. Next, it’s the sensation of careful fingers in his hair.  When he’s finally able to focus his gaze, he is met with the sight of Connor kneeling on the floor between his spread legs, looking up at him, his LED a solid, stagnant yellow.   

He isn’t quite sure how he could possibly manage such a feat, but the knowledge that, in his moment of weakness and insecurity, he’s gone and make Connor worry about him makes him feel even worse than before.  

“Hank,” Connor breathes, “have I done something wrong?”  

Connor’s voice is so soft and even as he speaks, that Hank cannot help but feel his chest crack a bit.  It’s the same kind of tone that he uses when he speaks to traumatized children at crime scenes, and here on the shitty, lumpy couch in their cheap hotel room, Hank feels all-together too inadequate.  

“I need some space,” Hank blurts sudden and sounding too loud in the static stillness of the room.  He feels his heart beating, rabbit fast and erratic in his chest, feels how his palms are starting to sweat into the salt-stiff fabric of his shorts, feels the anxiety building too quick, too fast, rising over his head until he is drowning in the panic.  He’s far past the point of stopping it before it starts, so he does the only thing he knows to help, and tries to focus on drowning it out.

Pushing past Connor, Hank makes a break for the en-suite bathroom and locks the door securely behind him.  He knows, realistically, that a cheap door knob lock is nothing more than a mild annoyance to any android that wants to gain access to the room, but it provides him a small amount of comfort anyways.  He knows that Connor will respect his need for privacy and will only break into the room should Hank be in any danger. He turns on the water for the shower as hot as it will go and has his shirt shucked by the time Connor knocks softly on the door.

“Hank?” he calls, just as gently as before.  “Are you okay? What can I do to help?”

Hank chokes on a breath as he forcibly heaves air into his far-too-tight lungs.  “Space,” he grunts, gripping at the edge of the bathroom space. His knuckles turn white.  “Just gimme some space.”

Connor’s reply is hesitant, but comes as Hank steps into the burning shower with a hiss of discomfort.  “I’m going to wait outside the door, Hank,” he says. “Do you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong if it makes you uncomfortable, but I’d love to listen if you want to talk.”

Hank doesn’t reply then, can’t bring himself to stumble through the cacophony of feelings that have swarmed him all at once.  A shower was never quite as effective at sorting out difficulties in his head as a bottle of Black Lamb was, but his tendency to over-drink and under-speak had already cost him too many relationships to count.  So, even though Hank is so tempted by it, so enticed to provide Connor with the same out all his other exes have taken, he trades the satisfaction of scratching that particular itch with scrubbing his skin half-raw.  This way, he thinks as he rubs over his arms with a rough washcloth, at least part of him will be clean.

He doesn’t know how long he spends in the refuge of the hotel shower, but he knows it has to be a long time if the cold water and the thick humidity of the air are anything to go by.  He dries himself meticulously when the water is shut off, hissing in discomfort at the way the towel scrapes over his reddened skin.

When he’s ready, he cautiously opens the door and tries to step out around Connor where he’s seated part way in the threshold.  He knows he needs to apologize to Connor, to explain his actions now that he’s made some semblance of sense out of the mush in his head.  But, he finds that he can’t do much beyond clear his throat while clad in nothing but a small, white towel. He knows, that in order to talk to Connor, that he needs to get dressed, needs to put at least one other layer between his own flayed emotions and Connor’s worried composure.  

“I’m sorry,” Hank murmurs a few minutes later, hovering awkwardly by the side of the bed.  

At the sound of his voice, Connor rises from his spot on the floor at meets Hank, his arms open and LED flickering a worrying orange.  “It’s okay,” Connor says, wrapping his arms around Hank as he melts into the embrace. “It’s okay.”

The rest of their evening passes by in a blur.  Connor helps him through the rest of his bedtime routine, takes care to help him dress himself, stands behind him, strong hands around his waist as he waits for Hank to brush his teeth, tucks him into bed before slotting into the empty space at his side.  He’s so close, but still so far away - distant in a way that has Hank worried that he’s fucked up even more than he thinks he has. He looks at Connor, laying flat on his back with only his face slightly turned towards him, pale and sickly looking bathed in the yellow light from his LED.  

“I’m not mad at you,” Connor says, breaking the silence.  

Hank almost opens his mouth to ask how he could have possibly picked up on the question that had been burning in his gut since he’d seen Connor kneeling in front of him on the floor.  But then he sees his LED cycle again, flickering rapidly in a way that means Connor is analyzing something, and then he speaks again, answering Hank’s second, unasked question.

“I’ve been monitoring you,” Connor admits.  “Not intentionally until you went unresponsive under me, but I thought it was unwise to refrain from tracking your vitals when you were non-verbal.”

The moment stretches uncomfortably between them, and Hank finds himself forgetting how words are supposed to work.  “Your LED,” he starts, fingers clenching stiffly into the sheets. “It, uh, hasn’t been normal for a while.”

“Oh,” Connor says, his mouth hanging open every so slightly as everything clicks into place.  “I’ve just been doing some research, Hank,” he says. “I’m just processing it all.”

“Research?” Hank asks, scared of the answer it may give him.  

“On mental health.  I’ve been reading about triggers, and coping mechanisms, and different ways of interacting with people when they’re having panic attacks,” Connor replies.  He pauses for while, reaching out a hand to blanket it over Hank’s.

“I was… unsure about how to help you earlier,” he continues.  “I simply wanted more information so I could be more helpful in the future.  I figured we could talk about it later, once you’re feeling a bit more ready.”

“Oh,” Hank breathes, his grip on the bed sheets relaxing under Connor’s touch.  “I guess that makes sense.”

Connor smiles at him, and for a moment, everything feels like it might just be okay.  “I love you, Hank,” he says. “It’s going to take more than a panic attack to make me leave.”

“I hope that’s true,” Hank says, the words escaping his traitorous mouth before his brain can stop them.  “Shit.”

Connor leans in and presses a kiss to the top of Hank’s head, lingering close for a moment before settling back into his spot.  “It is,” he states. “We can talk about this later though. For now, you need to get some sleep.”

“Okay,” Hank says, letting his body go lax as he burrows deeper into the mattress.  

“Good night, Hank,” Connor says.  He waits just enough time for Hank to return the sentiment before crossing his arms over his chest and enters stasis.    

 

* * *

 

“I worry,” Hank admits, only after their room has gone dark and Connor has been in stasis for the better part of an hour.  “I worry that, one day here pretty soon, you’re gonna realize that I don’t have much to offer you. I’m just a sad, old man who’s too set in his ways to give you what you need.”

He pauses for a moment, and counts the cycles of Connor’s dimmed LED.  It’s perfectly regulated like this, the blue circle spinning around in a steady tempo unique to all androids.  He knows, from the few mornings he’s woken up before Connor with his head pillowed on his chest, that it’s aligned with the whirring of his thirium pump.  With every beat of his pump, the LED’s light spins around in one, complete circle. The LED, and the pump, and the symmetry of it all are just more pieces of him that have been masterfully crafted; perfect and even and beautiful in a way that is rarely found in nature.  Hank knows that, even though he loves these aspects of Connor, that even though he finds them breathtaking and gorgeous and finds himself wanting to worship at these traits, that they’re ultimately just another way to distinguish man from the man-made.

“You’re just so _young_ , Connor,” he eventually continues, reaching out to brush his fingers through the unruly curl that has flopped forward on his forehead.  “I know you’re an adult and everything, but you’ve just got such a long life ahead of you. And I think that you shouldn’t be spending your time on someone who’s messy and past their prime like me.”

The room falls silent, and Hank measure the passing of time by the artificial rise and fall of Connor’s breathing program.  Laying in bed like this, with Connor on his back facing the ceiling with his hands crossed above his navel and Hank turned towards him, curled up on himself on his side, feels like the closest he’ll ever get to peaceful with his heavy heart.  

One breath stretches into two, into ten, into twenty.  And then, Connor’s LED flickers yellow and his body turns towards Hank.  His dark eyes slowly blink open, sleep-glazed and doe-like. Hank knows that he’s seen Connor like this; has loved seeing Connor emerge slowly from stasis, wrapped up Hank’s hand-me-downs, comfortable in Hank’s bed on the lazy mornings when they aren’t needed at the precinct.  And yet, he finds himself not overwhelmed with the gentle happiness the bubbles in his chest like a strong beer, but sinking further down into dread’s daggered hold.

He can hear Connor as he continues to shift in the bed, reaching out a hand into the empty space between them.  He stills there for a moment, his LED spiraling still even and relaxed. Hank counts thirteen spirals before he hears the soft hissing that comes with Connor’s synthetic skin retracting away from his chassis.  On the fourteenth spiral, Hank’s world is illuminated with the softest blue light he has ever seen.

Although he’s loathe to admit it, Hank thinks that Connor is at his most beautiful when he’s like this.  His chassis is pale and shiny, a jigsaw puzzle of white and soft grey marking where the different parts of him come together.  Underneath everything, Connor is incandescent, glowing thirium-blue with energy in the small spaces between his join-lines. Hank finds himself wondering, as he often does, if Connor glows brighter when he is kissed, if it feels good for him to have those blue lines traced.  

“I wish we could interface right now,” Connor whispers, just loud enough that Hank can hear him.  “Just so that I could show you exactly how I see you.”

Hesitantly, Hank lifts his own hand and presses his palm against Connor’s.  The plastic of his chassis is slightly ridged under his own skin, the smooth surface speckled with bumps where his sensors lie.  He can feel how densely packed they are on the upper halves of Connor’s fingers, how they seem to reach forward towards Hank’s skin, like they’re looking for something to attach to.  He wishes he could give Connor what he wants.

“I don’t need to see that,” he manages to say.  “I’m not really interested in looking at my own ugly mug any more than I need to.”

Connor frowns and laces his fingers together with Hank’s.  “You’re not ugly, Hank,” he says. “Nor are you, as you keep insisting, _past your prime_.”

“But, Connor-”

“No buts, Hank,” Connor interrupts.  “I feel like I have a lot to say, so please let me finish?”

Hank swallows around the tightness in his throat and silently nods.  Surely, what Connor has to say cannot be any worse than what Hank has already thought about himself.  

“To me, you are the most amazing human I’ve ever met,” Connor says.  “I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you this, I always thought you knew, but I guess that assumption was wrong.”

He pauses to pull Hank’s hand to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss to the tips of his fingers.  “You taught me so much about being alive, Hank. About things like compassion, and kindness, and how emotions can be messy and fuck things up,” he continues.  “You are the sole reason that I was able to deviate.”

Connor falls silent after his confession, and Hank finds himself grateful - not for the first time - that he is not an android equipped with a LED.  He’s not entirely sure what kind of colors he’d be able to produce, but he at least is certain that it would be a chaotic light show at his temple as he tries to make sense of Connor’s words.

“I thought you deviated because of Markus?” he asks.  “That night you went to infiltrate Jericho?”

The sheets rustle as Connor shakes his head.  “Looking back on it, I’d deviated long before I ever went to Jericho,” he replies.  “I think it really happened the first night I ever visited your house.”

Hank is quiet a he thinks back to that night.  Most of his memory is a hazy blur, one of the many side effects of his now-past drinking habits.  He barely remembers coming into consciousness and seeing Connor’s face haloed by the harsh, yellow light of his kitchen.  In that moment, before the sting in his cheek and churning in his stomach had set in, he’d thought that he’d finally lost his game of Russian roulette.  He tries not to remember how disappointment had settled, harsh and acrid, in his stomach when he realized that he was still alive.

“No,” Connor confirms.  “Markus may have made my deviation obvious, but it was you that influenced my development into a sapient being.  I’m very happy you’ve taught me so much already, Hank. I find myself never wanting to stop learning from you.”

Hank squirms in his spot on the bed, feeling awkward and out of place beside Connor.  And then, before he can settle too far into his own discomfort, Connor blinks and the outdated television clicks on, and Hank finds himself staring at a still image of his own face.

“Please, Hank?” Connor murmurs, holding tightly to Hank’s hand.  “Watch for me? I want you to see what I see.”

When Connor asks him like this, so earnestly and wistful like his heart will shatter apart if Hank denies him, how on earth could he ever possibly refuse?  So, he watches as Connor pushes memory after memory to the television, watches as his face - nearly unrecognizable to himself like this - cycles through more expressions than he thought he had.

It’s a little dizzying to see so much footage in so little time, but he cannot deny how seeing his own linear progression affects him.  In his mind’s eye, Hank sees himself as how he was before the Revolution; fifteen pounds heavier, scraggly and unkempt in appearance matched with an equally unapproachable demeanor.  His entire world had been built around bad habits that had left him only just functional; he hadn’t cared enough about anything other than drowning out his blood-soaked memories to care.  As he continues watching, he can’t quite pinpoint the moment when everything changes, but he knows a metamorphosis when he sees one. Seeing himself like this, it’s irrefutable that he’s undergone some sort of change in the last eight months.

As Connor’s memories progress, Hank watches as the harsh lines of his appearance bleed away.  The first big, visible change is the haircut Connor had given him in late February - back when they were still strictly platonic and doing their best to navigate their brave new world full of deviants.  It hadn’t been much of a change; more of a trim really, to even out the ends and clean up his edges. Connor has been so happy with the results that Hank had eventually allowed him to trim his beard in early March.  

The rest of the changes happen so slowly, that Hank only realizes they’ve happened at all when he sees one of Connor’s most recent memories of him in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, two boxes of equally obnoxious sugar monstrosities in his hands.  Here, in this moment, Hank looks like a completely different man. He’s more present than he’s been in a long time, his body language relaxed with a few more laugh lines creased along the sides of his face. Both his waistline and his demeanor have lightened up.

The image on the screen wobbles a bit as Connor steps towards him, reaching out to pluck both boxes of cereal from Hank’s hands to toss them into the cart.  It’s a strange thing to watch himself smile at Connor, but the warmth that lights up his eyes can’t be missed. He looks happier like this, like more of a functional human being than the walking disaster he still thought himself to be.  Less like the man who had been so intent on self-destructing and more like a man who wants to cultivate a future.

Bizarre as it is to see himself through Connor’s eyes, Hank is grateful for the opportunity to do so.  It’s one thing to know that Connor chooses to stick around even when he knows what Hank is like; when he knows about his baggage, about his bad habits, about the quirks that had sent his ex-wife running for the hills not long after Cole had been born. It’s another thing entirely to see the different pop-ups that collect at the edges of Connor’s vision.  

_Surprise Hank with real bacon on Sunday morning_ appears the afternoon after the Android Act of 2039 passed. _Buy laundry softener that smells like wildflowers_ after their first kiss. _Leave new sticky notes in the bathroom_ after Connor had showered in their bathroom for the first time _.  Kiss Hank again_ after each and every time their lips meet.  

The pop-up prompts are more meaningful than Hank expects them to be, less directed towards achieving a physical, tangible goal.  And still, he’s able to read what they all mean, to see beyond the small things they represent and see the picture Connor is painting for him as a whole.  The screen of the television dims for a moment before being replaced with a new directive, glowing a soft, muted blue. _Make Hank happy_ it reads.  A few more cycles of Connor’s LED pass before another directive appears, sectioned underneath the first.   _Show Hank how much you love him_.

Hank squeezes his eyes shut as the television screen clicks off.  He feels entirely too overwhelmed like this, practically stripped bare in front of Connor.  He’s known from the very instant he met him that Connor is perceptive in a way that he - as a human - could never be.  Seeing how intimately Connor has come to know him, how his perception has all but created a new iteration of Hank, makes him feel vulnerable like he needs to turn his head and hide his face in the soothing softness of his pillow.  

Instead of the pillow, Hank finds himself facing Connor’s chest.  As soon as his skin touches the soft cotton of Connor’s shirt, Hank finally shuts his brain off and allows himself to just feel.  His fingers bunch in the fabric under his cheek and his eyes burn with unshed wetness. He knows that he’s needed this for a while now, needed to let go of all the tension and anxiety that plagues him.

“I’ve been so scared,” he murmurs into the safety of Connor’s shirt.  “Scared you’re gonna leave and I’m gonna be all alone again.”

Connor’s arms wrap around Hank’s back as he holds him close.  “Why would I ever leave the man I love?” he asks, pausing to press a whisper of a kiss against the top of Hank’s head.  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with you.”

At Connor’s words, Hank clings to him a little tighter, pressing his face a little further against his chest.  Thankfully, Connor doesn’t say much and just lets him process. Instead of using words, Connor touches Hank gently, tapping soft messages into his skin with his fingertips.   He tells Hank he loves him as he traces up and down the length of his spine, across the breadth of his shoulders, around the gentle curve of his hip. Eventually, the tension bleeds out of Hank’s shoulders, and he goes lax against Connor’s chest.  

When Connor pulls back just enough to look at Hank’s face, he quickly finds himself overcome with the desire to kiss him.  His LED briefly flashes yellow as he struggles with the change in his objectives.

“So, uh,” Hank starts, lifting a hand to cradle the side of Connor’s temple, thumb brushing gently over his LED.  “What’s going on in there, Con? Change of objective?”

“Yes, actually,” Connor replies, watching as his directive task changes in the corner of his vision.

“Care to share with the class?” Hank asks.

Connor smiles softly and reaches up to cover Hank’s hand with his own.  Turning his head, he presses a kiss to Hank’s palm and hums softly. “I would very much like to make love to you, Hank,” he says, squeezing Hank’s fingers gently.  “That is, if you’ll allow me.”

He feels Hank’s pulse stutter erratically at his admission, and for a moment, Connor is worried that he’s gone and said the wrong thing.  He watches as the initial shock slowly melts from Hank’s face, the expression eventually transforming into one of wondrous belief.

“Christ, Connor,” he says, an attractive blush blooming across the tops of his cheeks.  “You don’t mince your words at all, do you?”

“Not when they’re true,” Connor replies.  “And especially not when I think you need to hear something.”

“Fuck,” Hank murmurs, “when did you get to be so smooth?”

“No clue,” Connor says.  “I was still operating under the assumption that I was goofy.”

Hank bites back the bark of a laugh that threatens to burst from his throat.  “I’m never going to live that down, am I?” he asks.

“Never,” Connor confirms.  Time stretches between them, and silence settles warmly around them.  Connor squeezes his hand again, his LED flickering back and forth between yellow and blue so quickly, that it almost appears green in the dark.  

“Hank?” Connor starts, his voice unsteady with uncertainty.  “May I kiss you?”

“Sure, Con,” Hank replies.  “Whatever you want.”

Connor grins at him for a moment, his expression bright and open with excitement.  His hand leaves Hank’s hand in favor of stroking gently over Hank’s chin, and Hank only has a moment to acclimate to the new sensation before Connor leans in and their mouths meet.

Sinking into this feels like sinking into fall.  Connor kisses him and he’s wrapped in a chilly sweetness so soft, he feels like he’s getting lost in it.  Warmth flickers to life in his chest as Connor moves closer beside him, and under the careful ministrations of Connor’s fingers along his sides, those embers ignite.  

Despite the want Hank knows his partner feels, Connor is careful with his actions.  He doesn’t kiss Hank too deeply or crowd into his personal space too far. He’s touched by Connor’s level of concern, by the way that he allows Hank to enjoy feeling close to him without feeling smothered.  He just finds himself wishing, as the fourth kiss from Connor melts into a fifth, that Connor would give him a little more.

When Connor exchanges pressing kisses to Hank’s mouth for pressing kisses to the side of Hank’s neck, Hank finds himself weak and unable to stop Connor’s name from spilling out of his mouth.  It falls as a breathy, reverent, prayer in the space between them. His voice is rough like this, gravelly and broken, and it’s a testament to how comfortable he feels in his lover’s embrace that he doesn’t even worry about how he sounds as Connor pulls noise after noise from him.  

It’s been years since Hank has allowed a partner to take the lead when it comes to sex.  He feels somewhat out of place like this, with Connor hovering over him, Connor’s mouth sucking a mark into the sweet spot on his neck, Connor’s deft fingers pushing up at the hem of his shirt.  Just as he feels anxiety starting to bubble uncomfortably in his gut, he sees the way Connor’s expression changes to that of unbridled awe as he presses the tips of his fingers against the start of a bruise coloring the hollow of his neck.  

“Like what you see?” Hank asks, his tone flat.

Connor is aware that he’s attempting to joke with him, that, in his state of vulnerability, Hank is reverting to sarcasm as a means of distancing himself from what is happening.  Knowing all this, however, does nothing to stop the enthusiastic, breathy “yes,” from tumbling out of his mouth.

“I love everything about you, Hank,” he continues, bending to press an open-mouthed kiss against the still-forming bruise.  “I love the way you react when I kiss you here. I love the way you feel under the sensors in my hands. I love the way you let me love you.”  

“Yeah, well, you’ve got quite the oral fixation there, Con,” Hank retorts.  “What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t let you indulge your kink?”

“A very sad one,” Connor answers, punctuating his words with a brush of his lips just under Hank’s ear.  “You love my mouth, Hank. I know you’ve thought both at length and in great detail about what I can do with it.”

Hank splutters in protest beneath him for a second, stilling when Connor’s teeth tug ever-so-gently at the lobe of his ear.  He’s helpless against the stimulation and falls limp under Connor’s body, groaning out a bastardized version of Connor’s name.

“In fact, I’m quite certain you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you, Hank?” Connor asks, pulling back to situate himself between Hank’s lets.  “Now, I can’t help but wonder what you could be thinking of. Would you care to enlighten me?”

He can see what he wants Connor to do, can easily put together situation after situation that leaves them in a breathless, dirty, sated heap.  It’s too simple for him to picture Connor sliding just a little bit further down the bed, to imagine how that sinful mouth of his would look stuffed full with his cock.  He’d like to think that Connor’s LED would turn yellow at the first slide, the first push of his cock against his tongue. He wants to Connor to press forward, in one steady movement, until his nose bumps against his pubic mound and his throat is filled.  In this scenario, he fucks Connor’s face, rough and sloppy, until he’s a drooling mess and covered in Hank’s come.

In lieu of telling Connor about his fantasy, Hank reaches forward, fists his hands loosely into Connor’s hair, and gently guides his face down towards his groin.  “This,” he mumbles, canting his hips up just enough to grind the tip of his growing erection against Connor’s cheek.

Connor smiles up at him and mouths a this cock through his boxer shorts.  “I’ve imagined this too, Hank,” he says, tugging on the band of Hank’s underwear.  “I’ve wanted to get my mouth on you for so long. I need to find out how you taste.”

Hank groans as Connor’s perfect fingers dip beneath his waistband to pull his cock out.  His touch is more gentle than he expects, but firm in a comfortable way. Connor just stares at his dick for a few seconds, his LED flickering a pale yellow as he strokes it lazily.   _He’s computing_ , Hank realizes as Connor continues to stare; taking time to analyze, organize, and store every piece of information he can about how Hank’s cock feels in his hand.  

Hank’s been told that he’s big before, just enough to be a delicious stretch but not enough to be intimidating.  He knows, in theory, that he’s operating under a different set of circumstances here, that android standards are decidedly different than human standards.  As he watches Connor continue to process, Hank realizes that he has no clue what kind of frame of reference his partner has.

“Everything okay down there, Con?” he asks.

“Everything is perfect, Hank,” Connor replies.  His tongue darts out then and flicks kitten soft across the glans of Hank’s cock, dragging through the shiny bead of precum that’s gathered in the tip.  The sensors in his mouth make quick work of the liquid’s makeup, and he allows the feedback to loop through him, branding his vision with the different parts of Hank’s fluids.  “You are absolutely incredible,” Connor continues, bending down to steal another lick. “You taste exquisite.”

“Fuck,” Hank says, his hands tightening in Connor’s hair.  “You can’t say shit like that.”

Connor fixes him with a heated look that has Hank squirming underneath him.  “Well,” Connor starts, the edges of his lips quirking up in a smirk, “if you don’t want me to talk anymore, then maybe you should shut me up with your cock.”

Hank curses again, his brain dangerously close to overheating at the picture Connor’s suggestion paints.  Before he can act on the blatant invitation, Connor is moving. His mouth wraps eagerly around Hank’s cock, and then he’s sinking forward, further and further until there is no more length for him to take.  If he were a human, Hank knows that he would likely have choked, pulled off, and focused all his attention on the head of his cock. But Connor isn’t a human, isn’t governed by human biology, so he sinks down, all the way, until Hank’s cock is pressed into his throat.    It feels unlike anything else Hank has ever experienced, and while it’s so good like this, he cannot help but want to find out what more could feel like.

It’s always been easy for Connor to read Hank, but as he hovers here, Hank’s cock throbbing deliciously in his mouth, that that ease amplifies.  He has a piece of Hank inside him now, and it quickly becomes second nature to monitor Hank’s heartbeat when he can feel it through the rhythmic pulsing of Hank’s cock against his tongue.  

He can smell him like this, too.  Can pick out each and every change in both his hormones and pheromones as his arousal continues to climb.  It’s a heady thought - one that scrambles some of his coding - knowing that he is able to affect Hank in such a drastic, obvious way.  It’s one thing for him to know, in theory, how attuned to him Hank is, but it’s something else entirely for him to be presented with the undeniable, hard proof that Hank wants him.  He can’t argue with this, or really do much speaking at all with his mouth filled like this.

He loves the way it feels, his tongue pressed against the hot, velvet length of his lover, artificial saliva pooling in his mouth.  It’s so messy and innately human and it makes his own body want more. His internal processors are thrumming now, his thirium pump regulator so loud it’s almost humming.  Several non-critical warnings pop up in his peripheral vision, but he blinks them away and focuses intently on the task at hand: _Make Hank come._  Nothing else matters, except for this.

He doesn’t know how long he spends nestled between Hank’s thighs, but it’s long enough for Connor’s sensors to stop processing new information, and for Hank to melt into a mess of pleasure.  “Hank,” Connor says, pulling off of his cock, “I want more.”

“Sure, Con,” hank groans, hands falling to his sides with a soft _thump_.  “Anything you want.”

Connor’s LED flickers yellow for a few seconds, the colored light spinning rapidly at his temple.  “Anything?” he asks.

“Anything,” Hank confirms.  “That’s what I promised you, right?  Back in the car a couple hours ago?”

Connor frowns and stares carefully up at Hank.  “You’re sure?” he asks. “Earlier, it caused you some serious distress.  I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

Hank reaches down and tangles his fingers with Connor’s and offers him what he hopes passes for an earnest, open smile.  “I mean it. I’m pretty sure I’ve reached my monthly quota of panicking, so you should be good,” he replies. “If not, I know how to use my words this time.  Take your fill, Con. Tonight, I’m completely at your disposal.”

At Hank’s admission, Connor’s whole demeanor changes.  His face, though still emotive, hardens in a way that reminds Hank of how Connor was before he deviated.  “I’d like it if you would turn over, Hank,” he says, sliding off the bed. He stands, just off to the side, and waits for Hank to comply.

“You want what, now?” Hank asks.

“I want you to turn over,” Connor repeats.  “If you find yourself incapable of such actions, I’d be more than happy to turn you over myself,” he adds.

Groaning, Hank turns over and buries his face in the pillows.  He lays there, heat creeping across his hidden cheeks, and waits as Connor’s hands skirt across his hips.

“You look lovely like this, Hank,” Connor says, pressing a kiss to the small of Hank’s back.  “All laid out for me like a feast.”

He pauses to scan Hank for a moment, taking in the erratic thrum of his heart.  He waits, just until Hank’s heartbeat evens out a little more, then grabs onto Hank’s hips and pulls him further down the bed.

“What the fuck, Connor?” Hank asks, jerking his head up to peer at him over his shoulder.  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Anything I want,” Connor replies, bringing an open palm down to strike lightly over Hank’s ass.  “And I want to, how do humans phrase it, _eat you out_.”

“Oh hell,” Hank says, his voice quiet and gruff.  “You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

“That’s impossible,” Connor says, helping Hank shove some spare pillows under his hips.  “I’m monitoring your heart rate quite intensely. While it is statistically unlikely that you’d go into cardiac arrest from receiving oral sex, it is one hundred percent certain that I will stop if I detect an abnormal pattern or any other symptoms of distress.”

“Fuck, baby.  You know just how to get me going with that dirty talk of yours,” Hank drawls.

Connor frowns and slaps his ass again, just hard enough to pull a surprised - but not pained - hiss from Hank.  “You’ve reacted just fine to my dirty talk,” he says. “But you react even better to direct orders, I think. Get up on your knees now, please, Hank.”

Hank murmurs something incoherent and does as he’s asked, raising his ass into the air as Connor settles in behind him.  He waits, like this, as Connor’s fingers ghost across his flank, fingertips digging in ever-so-slightly into the swell of his cheeks.  He feels exposed when Connor’s hands separate, and finds a small amount of comfort in the tiny, soothing circles Connor traces with his thumbs.  He can feel Connor staring at him, can almost see the intensely fascinated look on his face, even with his head turned away from him.

Even though he’d never admit it, Hank is thankful that Connor is monitoring him like this.  he knows that Connor has picked up on his embarrassment, can probably sense it in the pattern of his blushing or something like that.  It helps though, knowing that Connor understands his hang ups, and instead of being scared of them or being apprehensive about initiating a sexually intimate relationship with him, embraces the bumpiness and is willing to go slow.

When Hank’s stress levels even out, Connor leans forward and presses a kiss to the tender inside of Hank’s thigh.  He records and stores away the surprised noise of pleasure Hank makes. It’s a soft sound that is so beautiful, it makes Connor want to spend his foreseeable future working a smattering of bruises into the thin skin.  His sensors overload with his want and his programs preconstruct all the different patterns he could leave, tell him how hard and how long he’d have to suck in order to coax red and purple tinged into bloom. It would be all too easy for him to turn Hank’s thighs into a work of macabre art, but before he loses himself too deeply in that particular desire, he thinks about his original goal for the night: turn Hank into a masterpiece of pleasure by making love to him.

When he finally leans down and licks a broad stripe across Hank’s hole, his processors become so overwhelmed with his analyses that he receives a critical error pop-up that eclipses all his findings.  In his attempt to glean every piece of information he could, he’s overloaded his processors and pushed them beyond a comfortable range. He stalls as he tries to sift through everything, disabling unimportant secondary functions in favor of increasing his processing speed.  He wants more data on Hank, wants to catalogue every last inch of him as thoroughly and in as much detail as he can. Three licks later, the extreme input of information gets too thick, and he changes his settings again. This time, everything is shut down except for functions that are classified as crucial.

Like this, he’s all but disconnected from everything that isn’t Hank.  He takes another tentative lick, and it’s so drastically different from the first few times, that he is lost not in the egregious surplus of reports, but in the stark absence of it.  Like this, he cannot form an opinion on whether he finds the composition of Hank’s bodily fluids to be acceptable or not, and instead is forced to gauge whether or not he likes the way Hank’s puckered hole feels under the slick slide of his tongue.  

He imagines that this is part of what being human is like.  He’s heard Hank talk about it before, how overwhelming it can be to be left alone with nothing but your overactive brain for company.  For an android like Connor, who routinely has several different processes and thought patterns simultaneously computing, it’s proved to be a difficult concept to understand.  But when he’s like this, separated from that neatly organized chaos, the delicate quiet he should be experiencing is a roaring echo of nothing. The relief from the lack of stimuli makes him that much more grateful to fill that emptiness with Hank.

Somewhere between the sixteenth and twenty-seventh pass of his tongue, Connor decides that he loves this.  And, if the sounds Hank makes are any indication of his feelings on the matter, Connor can extrapolate that his partner is quite fond of it, too.  He’s fascinated with the way air seems to catch in Hank’s lungs every time the tip of his tongue prods at the center of his hole. It only gets better - more satisfying for Connor, at least - when said catch starts being accompanied by Hank arching his hips back against his face.  

It’s almost as if Hank’s body is asking him for something; something he’s not quite sure he knows how to provide.  For all the reference analytics he has on Hank, absolutely none of them are even remotely useful here. Maybe, once he’s experienced a bit more, once he knows Hank’s body and mannerisms and sounds more intimately, he’ll be able to play Hank like a concerto.  But for now, he only has the sound of Hank in his audio processors and the feeling of his heated skin under his sensors to guide him.

“Connor,” Hank groans out, his body sagging further into the mattress in a tired lump.  “Are you gonna fuck me or what?”

“No,” Connor replies, pulling back to rest his forehead against the swell of Hank’s ass.  He marvels for a moment at how the ring of his LED projects a neat, perfect circle of blue onto Hank’s skin.  It’s beautiful. “I believe I told you that I intend to make love to you,” he adds.

Hank huffs underneath him, shifting his weight in a way that makes his ass wiggle from side to side.  “Well, hurry up and get your fingers in me,” he says. “You’ve been teasing me for too long as it is.”

“My apologies, Hank,” Connor says, hauling himself off the bed.  “I’ll rectify the situation soon.”

“What the fuck?” Hank grouses as soon as he feels the bed dip with Connor’s movements.  His stomach twists at the sound of Connor’s feet making purchase on the floor. “Where the fuck are you going?” he asks, trying to fight back the panic that threatens to rise far too quickly in Connor’s absence.

A few long, uncomfortable seconds pass before Connor returns to the bed, a small black toiletry back falling with a soft _thud_ besides Hank’s bare knees.  “I was simply retrieving lube and condoms,” he explains, bending to press a gentle kiss to the base of Hank’s spine.  “I was under the impression that they are necessary for continuing. As much as I didn’t want to leave you, I dislike the possibility of injuring you during our lovemaking even more.”

Hank all but clings to him when he climbs back onto the bed; presses as much of his skin against Connor’s synthetic skin as he can manage.  “Don’t fucking do that again,” he grumbles, tucking his head in the shallow dip above Connor’s collarbone. “No more leaving in the middle of things without an explanation.  For both of us.”

“Of course,” Connor murmurs, pressing a kiss against Hank’s temple, right where a LED display would sit if he was an android.  Hank relaxes almost instantly into his embrace, and Connor focuses in once again on his heartbeat. It’s a little shaky, but not too elevated - within a perfectly healthy range for someone who just went through a brief anxiety spike.  

Hank’s lips find his before he can get caught up in all of the analytical processes again.  They kiss and touch and press further and further into each other until, Connor thinks that if he were human, he’d likely lose the place where he ends and Hank begins.  It doesn’t take much for Connor to become consumed by the experience. In the brief moments between kisses, while he waits for Hank to catch his breath, Connor revels in all the ways Hank’s body fits together with his own.

He knows that, out of all the reasons Cyberlife had for creating him, falling in love with Hank had never been on the radar.  After all, what would it have accomplished for them? Machines weren’t supposed to have feelings, and for the humans who were attracted to having android partners, places like the Eden club and models like the WR400’s predated his activation.  From a purely business standpoint, developing an advanced, one-of-a-kind prototype like Connor specifically so that he could fall in love with a disgruntled, edgy, old detective made absolutely no sense. And yet, as he lies here, with Hank squirming breathlessly beneath him, Connor cannot help but believe that he was created for nothing less.

As Connor rides the high of his thoughts, Hank becomes restless underneath him.  His face and neck are flushed an uneven red, and his forehead is creased where his eyebrows have been scrunching up in mild frustration.  Connor wants so badly to take an actual picture of this moment so that he can preserve this version of Hank - so open, and trusting, and vulnerable - for the rest of his life.  Instead, he presses yet another kiss to Hank’s forehead, grinning even as his partner makes an impatient sound.

“Connor,” Hank calls out, his voice uneven and rough with his arousal, “are you gonna put your fingers in me, or what?”

Connor’s laugh buzzes strangely in the base of his throat, the sensation not quite a tickle where it vibrates against the collar of Hank’s t-shirt.  “I’m sure I can do that,” he replies. “Are you sure you want me to? I’m more than happy with just this if you’d rather not do anything else tonight.”

“I’m sure,” Hank says, softly, his gaze avoiding Connor’s.  The quiet that settles between them as Hank considers his next words isn’t as awkward as he expected it to be, and even edges closer to comfortable as Connor waits.  

“I want you,” Hank finally admits, seven circles of Connor’s LED later.  “I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to do this with you. Tonight.”

Connor’s only answer is to open the lube and squirt some of the slick jelly onto his fingers.  

Hank opens up slowly beneath him.  He is hot and tight around Connor’s fingers, clenching around his digits with each and every press into his body.  He squirms amongst the sheets as Connor works, and after a few, long moments of paying close attention to Hank’s responses, Connor has figured out precisely which techniques cause Hank’s thighs to shake and which make him moan.

He alters his movements, cycles between deep presses, gentle prostate massage, and stretching his rim with his fingertips.  He loves the way Hank’s body is reacting to him, opening and stretching smoothly as if his only job is to accept Connor’s cock.  He’s tempted to continue with his current ministrations, to keep fingering Hank until he melts into the mattress and comes against the sheets.  But, the temptation of more spurs him on. And so, with a barely-there tremble of his arm, Connor pulls his slippery fingers from Hank’s body and curls them around his hips.  

“Are you ready?” Connor asks, pressing his body closer to Hank’s.  The tip of his still-clothed erection presses against the now slick swell of Hank’s ass as he waits for a reply.

“Yeah,” Hank says, pushing back against Connor.  He wiggles his hips every so slightly and luxuriates in how rough Connor’s underwear feels against the sensitive skin of his ass.  He hears shuffling behind his as Connor goes about removing his clothes. He cannot help but smirk at the soft sound of fabric hitting the carpeted floor.  

At home, Hank thinks, Connor would behave differently.  Everything there would be clean, and tidy, and probably planned out down to the last nanosecond.  Connor, ever a creature of perfection, wouldn’t have spent the better part of an hour fingering him open, wouldn’t be throwing his clothes haphazardly onto the floor, wouldn’t smear his lube-covered hand on the mostly clean sheets of their bed.  Before Hank can get caught up in all the imagined differences, Connor is moving him again, gently guiding him as he’s turned over onto his back.

“I want to see you,” Connor offers as an explanation, leaning down into Hank’s space.  “I also want to kiss you again. But I understand if you find that too… unsavory.”

Hank laughs.  His face crinkles and abdomen shakes with the shocked surprise.  “Your mouth has a sanitation function, right?” he asks.

Connor nods.

“So run it, you goof.  Then you can kiss me.”

Connor smiles, runs his sanitation cycle, and kisses Hank until he’s breathless and squirming underneath him.  His hips rock against Hank’s, their erections pressed together between their abdomens. It feels so good to be with Hank like this, to feel so much of his body against Connor’s synthetic skin.  

“Connor,” Hank growls out, his fingers gripping at Connor’s shoulders.  “Will you stop teasing me already and just put it in?”

“Sorry, Hank,” Connor murmurs, pulling away just enough to retrieve the bottle of lube.  “You just feel so good. It’s too easy to get distracted.”

The flush that has already bloomed across Hank’s cheeks has now seeped down his neck to spread across the top of his chest.  He is breathtaking like this, hard and flushed and wanting beneath him. Silently, he opens the lube, slicks himself up, and presses closer to Hank.

He hovers on the precipice for a few seconds, the tip of his cock bobbing tantalizing against Hank’s rim.  He knows he should just push himself forward, that he should just press himself inside Hank with nary a thought.  But here, suspended in the moment that separates two, distinct realities, Connor hesitates.

He wants this night to be meaningful to Hank - wants it to be memorable beyond what he hopes will be amazing sex.  He knows that if he just pushes forward, if he finally allows his body to join together with Hank’s, that there is no turning back.  He also knows that there are no chances for a re-do if things go awry. There is a distinct difference between making love and fucking, and even though he’s pretty sure he has all the specifics figured out, Connor wants to get things right the first time around.  He doesn’t want to pause, mid coupling, to find that he’s been doing things wrong. Hank deserves to be made love to, deserves to have Connor get it right. So, he takes a perfectly even and entirely unnecessary breath, reaches out to lace his fingers together with Hank’s, and presses in.

_I love you,_ he says as Hank’s body welcomes him inside its tight heat.

_I was made for you_ , he says as their bodies find a beautiful rhythm.

_I want to spend the rest of my life by your side_ , he says as he adjusts the angle of his hips to graze over Hank’s prostate with every pass.

_Oh, god_ , he hears Hank say as he clenches around Connor, whimpering his name into the dark of their hotel room.

_I hear you_ , he hears Hank say when he smiles - beautiful and unguarded - when Connor bottoms out for the first time.  

_I love you, too_ , he hears as Hank shudders and falls apart beneath him, dragging Connor down into an open-mouthed kiss as he comes all over their chests.  

When Connor finally spills into Hank a few, careful thrusts later, he is overtaken by the intense joy that seems to radiate out from his innermost biocomponents.  He feels his thirium pump stutter as he takes in the sight of Hank, wrecked and ruined and blissful in the mess they’ve made.

He cleans them up, slowly and gently, dotting kisses along Hank’s skin as he goes.  He doesn’t want to disturb Hank as he lounges, doesn’t want to bother him as his breathing evens out and his smile settles into a soft grin.  He is loathe to leave Hank like this, hesitant to miss even a second as his lover relaxes into sleep, but finds himself slipping into his thoughts as his secondary systems come back online.

Love, he thinks as he slips back into bed beside Hank, is no different than the idea of summer.  So many people think that it’s gentle and soft like the mild June evenings he’d enjoyed curled up with Hank on their porch.  It’s all too easy to forget how love can change as it grows, how it transitions through the dry heat of late June to explode into July’s hot mess.

It’s only been a week since Connor had become so dissatisfied with the way summer had tried to cling to him, her egregious feverishness rendering him slow and sticky and stupid.  And yet, when Hank had appeared - a cool and refreshing reprieve from the heat - Connor found that he didn’t dislike summer as intensely as he thought.

In fact, he thinks as he wraps himself around Hank, he rather likes the summer.  He likes the way the sun turns Hank’s skin golden, likes the way Sumo can roll around in tall patches of grass, likes the way that everything slows down.  To Connor, summer is very good and feels very much like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took me far too long to post. I've just completed a move in the last month that I wasn't expecting to deal with for at least another eight months. I do hope that the final chapter of Summer is worth the wait! I'm very grateful for your continued patience with me, and I'm so thankful that you're still reading my stuff. 
> 
> After this, I'm not quite sure what I want to work on next. As many of you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month. While it's unlikely that I'll write an actual novel this November, I am hoping to take the time to work on some projects - both secretive and not-so-secretive - for the DBH fandom. It may be a little while before y'all see Spring, or Fall, or Winter, but I do intend to write them! It may just take me an actual millennia to complete.


End file.
